


M A N I A

by wandering_gypsy_feet



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:00:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25169605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wandering_gypsy_feet/pseuds/wandering_gypsy_feet
Summary: A different Kastle scenario, moment in time, glimpse of what might be, and an AU, all set to and inspired by the lyrics to the soundtrack of Fall Out Boy's soundtrack, M A N I A.Fluff. Angst. Fix it. And the timeless high school AU.
Relationships: Frank Castle/Karen Page
Comments: 70
Kudos: 80





	1. Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some princes don't become kings
> 
> Even at the best times I'm out of my mind
> 
> You only get what you grieve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> christ. is this a song fic? i think it's a songfic. 
> 
> anyways!! summary provides the lyrics that inspired me, chapter provides the song name. this album was one of my all-time favs and I feel like so much of it can be tied to Frank and Karen!! 
> 
> please enjoy this peek into a typical karen and frank fight.

His hands are shaking. They never shake. Can't pull a trigger and hit a target if you shake. They'd torn weakness after weakness out of him with the Marine's and now he's just an empty shell, his innards scooped up and replaced with training. Except he is so furious that some part of him, a thread of an angry high schooler with too much rage and not enough outlets, has woven back through him. 

He can't even look at Karen. If he looks, he remembers, and if he remembers, he only gets madder. So he paces and paces and paces, and all the while his hands tremble. It's one thing for her to run blindly towards a bomber to save him. It's quite another for her to kill - _murder_ \- to protect him. 

"I'm not sorry." those are the only words she's said in the past two hours or so. When had she called him again? 1 am? He doesn't sleep anymore. 

"Karen." a warning. He should call her ma'am again, or Ms. Page. To show how goddamn serious he is about this. How serious this situation is. A body in the ground and not a lick of remorse from her. 

"Well? He was a rapist, Frank." 

"I know that!" _pace, pace, pace_. Tremble, tremble, tremble. "You shouldn't have done that." 

"What, and let him come after you?" 

"You know anyone who can sneak up on me?" 

"Yeah." blazing eyes that finally meet his. Blue fire burns hotter, or so they say. He wrenches his gaze away, wondering if she means her or Matt. Doesn't matter. They're both fucking morons. 

"Karen." clenched teeth. Usually her name is something sweet in his mouth, but right now it tastes like ash. The haze of what could have been hangs heavy over him, a death shroud of thoughts. He usually lives here, in this foggy between. Dreaming of what might have happened if he'd listened. Not gone to the park. Slept in, woke up earlier, got ice cream, stayed to take the trash out, something, anything to change that day in the park. To get a happier ending. 

But today his what if doesn't have to be a dream. The best possible outcome happened - Karen alive, bad guy dead, pot of coffee brewing, the city sleeping. So what can't he get himself out of his head, out of this anger, where all he can see if her brains blown apart in a warehouse? 

"Hey." she stands and approaches, slowly but confidently. He's a wounded, cornered beast ready to snap and snarl, but she's the lion tamer. "I did what I had to. What you would've done." 

"Then you should have let me do it!" he roars, and she takes a pace back. This is the heart of it. He doesn't need her doing his job. He doesn't want her involved, period. Her involvement will only lead to her death and he can't stand it. 

"You're not a young female, delicate and trusting." she crosses her arms and he looks away from her, wanting to scream that is exactly what she is. She's young - god, so young compared to him - and she doesn't know how easily she can bleed. How easily she's broken. He does, he can close his eyes and imagine her dead twenty seven ways to Sunday. 

And she's trusting. Not of everyone. Not of most anyone, actually. But she trusts him and that's the danger. That's where all this comes to a point. She trusts him and she protects him and she lures rapists into dark warehouses to untimely ends just for the suggestion that they will do harm to him and then she stands before him, not sorry for a single moment of her actions and it makes him dizzy. Sick to his stomach, he lets himself lean against the cool window and look down at the city below. The cars and people rushing by, all of them oblivious to anything and everything. 

"Kar, you gotta stop." 

"I'm not going to make this a habit, believe me." 

"No?" he looks up at her. "So you won't do it again, if the circumstances are the same?" 

"Don't ask me that." she averts her eyes, but he keeps after her. 

"How many times, huh? How many times would you do this for me?" 

"Enough." she glares at him and they're only a few paces apart. "Enough times to keep you safe." 

"I'm not something you can save!" he bellows and she doesn't blink. 

"Or you're something that doesn't want to be saved." 

He stares at her after that. How is she so good at this, at cutting to the heart of his bullshit and decimating everything else? He can think of one other person who did that with this level of skill. And it's that line of thinking that brings him right back to the heart of this, to the reason why he is so angry with her. He's not a good man. Hasn't been for a long time. Certainly not what she deserves. And he doesn't deserve her either. He deserves to be a broken, wounded, angry and vengeful old man who obliterates happiness as soon as it nears him, for the express purpose of reminding him he is not the hero of this story. He lost that chance. 

"Quit putting yourself in unnecessary danger," is the order he gives her. The second half of the sentence - because I'm not worth it - hangs unsaid between them. 

"Some day." she turns to the kitchen again and retrieves a bottle stashed under the sink. "Until then, can we agree to drink and be done with this?" 

"No." but he reaches for the bottle anyways. They both drink, watching the other as they do and avoiding each other when they're not. The two of them, in the dark and the quiet. His head throbs just a little less and his hands are steadier now. He sits in the chair by the window and she sits on the sill, close enough to touch but miles away. 

"You know I can handle things," she reminds him quietly, after an appropriate amount of time has passed that if this conversation goes negatively, they can blame it on booze. 

"Yeah." he does know. But knowledge isn't always a big enough shield against fear. 

"And you know it's not your fault." 

"No." that's a lie, it is his fault. It's all his fault, it's always his fault. 

"Frank, you're not responsible for me." 

_Sarah's my wife. Sarah's my family._

_So is Karen._

"I can't lose you," he mumbles, to the bottle instead of her. A hand on his knee and then he looks up into the sky blue eyes of her and is damned if he doesn't want to start crying. 

"You won't," she promises and the way it's said isn't a promise that she won't die or won't get hurt or won't go down swinging in a mess they both create. It's that she'll be here, good and bad, sane and raging, safe and scared, all of it, always. 

He closes his eyes and tips his head back, thinking about love and loss and Maria and Lisa and Frankie and the world without them but with Karen. 

His hands still shake, a little bit, but he doesn't notice if Karen holds them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reviews are love, updates on saturdays, thank you for reading!


	2. The Last of the Real Ones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know this whole damn city thinks it needs you
> 
> But not as much as I do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day late and a dollar short? 
> 
> just arrived back to civilization, aka wifi. forgive me and enjoy more angst!

Where the hell was the vodka? He'd put it on the upper shelf last week when he'd bought some from the bodega, he'd have bet his life on it. But each time he reached up and tried to grab it, he came back empty handed. Cursing, he finally relented and went to drag a stool over so that he could actually see into the cabinet. Blood dripped onto the laminate counter tops from his knuckles, a soft _plop_ when they hit. 

It'd fallen over in the way back, that was why. With a grunt and a precarious balancing act, he managed to bring it to the front and then off the stool. He poured a decent amount over the scrapes on his hands then used the rest to make a stiff drink. Then he went to the couch to turn on the TV and rest. 

"---and after being exposed for not only sexual harassment but sexual exploitation of his employees, the investigation led by the New York Bulletin also accuse that the entire organization is a front for human trafficking. If so, this could lead to New York shutting down a huge hub for sexual traffickers." 

He set the drink down hard on the end table and sent a few bullets rolling onto the floor. Funny how the imaginary hands of fear could punch him harder in the gut than any henchman. It was clear to him, as if it had been shouted into his face, that there was one person behind this. 

He sat down and waited for the news to cycle back to the story again. They did, several times, each time adding more details to it. The FBI had issued a statement. Some CEO taken into custody, a PR machine frantically trying to undo the damage. And then, at the end, more on the fact that the New York Bulletin was the team behind all of it. They showed a photo of the front page of the news paper and he didn't even want to look at the byline. 

He looked out the window. The city was still in the awkward between of seasons, hunkered down from the hell of winter but willing to venture out into the warmer air that lingered longer and longer each day. Soon there would be summer and chaos, but for now it seemed calm. Except for the dark corners and back alleys, where he could spend his evenings doing a bit of work. 

He took another drink, sighing. He wasn't sure if he was angry or happy or disappointed or upset or scared. Emotions had never been his strong suit. Expressing them was even less likely. But he knew that he wouldn't sit down for the rest of the night if he didn't go, so finally he grumbled a few curses, threw the glass in the sink, and grabbed a jacket, back out into the night. 

"I have a doorbell." she answered his knocking with a little scowl and he shrugged. Anyone could use the doorbell. This way she knew it was him. "What do you want?" 

"Gonna let me in?" he asked pointedly, feeling vulnerable as he stood in the doorway with his back to the stairs. Her frown deepened but then she ushered him in. Progress. They hadn't spoken cordially like this in a couple months, if he remembered right. Ever since they'd had the fight. 

"What do you want then?" she walked into the living room, pulling that curtain of blonde hair up. Messy bun, top of the head. If he needed any other sign that she'd been the one putting the long hours in on that story, that would have been it. That and the fact that her apartment looked like a circus had set up camp there. Clothes, empty food boxes, and papers littered the entire living room on every free surface.

"Late nights?" he glanced around and she crossed her arms, the frown now a full glare. 

"What are you doing here?" another pointed question. No relenting. Dark circles under her eyes and no color in her cheeks. He was sure she'd been killing herself over this. 

"Just checking in on you." he watched her face for any crack, any little bit of weakness. 

"Why would I need to be checked on?" her mouth had a mule-ish set to it. He wanted to smile. 

"C'mon." he gestured to the TV. "I saw the news." 

"What about the news?" she questioned and he made a face at her. 

"Don't play dumb. It doesn't suit you." 

"I--" she went to make a comment and then went quiet, sighing a little. "It's not a big deal." 

"It is a big deal." he had a brief flash of anger - how could she not think that this was a big deal? She had done several of these types of pieces and every time, she'd gotten threats and awful things seemed to happen to her. She'd brush it off and usually he'd let her. After all, she was a big girl with a big gun. She was capable of protecting herself. 

Until she wasn't. And that was where he came in. 

"It had to be done." that was her standard argument. And not one that he could deny either. It did have to be done. Bad men had to be exposed, the innocent and weak had to be protected, and the wrongdoings needed to be shouted from every rooftop. 

What he protested was her being the one to do it and therefore draw a target on her back for all of New York City. 

“Karen.” 

“You want a beer?” she avoided the conversation by turning to the fridge. He stayed where he was, hands in his jacket pocket. “Or need something stronger?” 

“Whatcha got?” he was not one to turn down good booze, especially her’s. She had good taste. 

“Irish.” 

“Yeah.” he watched as she filled two glasses, then came back to hand him one. He tried to get a good look at her, to see if she seemed alright. But she avoided his eyes, sliding past him. 

“What have you been up to?” she asked, sitting on the back of the couch with her arms folded around her. He leaned against the counter, watching her.

“Same old, same old.” he took a sip and gave a little shrug. Her eyes narrowed as she drank as well and the silence between them lingered for a moment too long. 

“How many ribs are broken right now?” she questioned, tone harsh and he automatically wrapped a hand around them, feeling the twinge of pain. 

“A few.” 

“And yet you’re checking up on me.” accusation fell from her lips. He took another drink, averting his eyes. There was so much between the two of them that neither of them had to do much explaining to the other. The implications were there. 

“Karen.” 

“Don’t Karen me,” she snapped, looking away from him. “I’m fine.” 

“I’ll go then.” he downed the rest of his drink, hearing Karen’s little huff. It almost made him smile. He knew all her little quirks. They were pretty damn endearing, which was annoying. So was her insistence of getting a hit squad called on her.

"I'm fine," she told him eventually, a bit of reluctance in her voice. He raised an eyebrow and went to pour himself another glass. He'd walk, or catch a cab. More likely walk and find trouble in some dark alley, if he didn't get too drunk. "Really. Most of the people were arrested."

"So you haven't gotten any angry calls or letters, threatening your pretty, blonde head?" he asked pointedly and she averted her eyes. "Yeah. That's what I thought." 

"Someone is always threatening me," she reminded him, exasperated as though he'd told her he'd forgotten to bring home the milk. 

"Yeah, hence why I always gotta be here." for someone so smart, she could be so dumb. 

"No, you're here because you think that I need protection from the things I get myself into even though I'm a grown, capable adult. What about when you're in trouble, huh Frank? What about when you're in too deep? Can I show up at your apartment to just check in? Oh right." she ended her outburst with crossed arms. "I'm not allowed to do that. Only you." 

He stared at her in a bit of frank astonishment. As much as he would never want to admit, parts of her words rang true. He didn't want to think on it - to let the guilt sink in any further - so he defaulted to the defensive, nose twitching and lips curling slightly, the grip on his glass tightening. 

"Why would you worry about me Karen?" 

"Don't do that." she rocked back and forth on her feet. "Don't." 

"Don't what? I don't attach my name to shit. Don't call people out like that. I have something that needs to be taken care of, I do it and I'm done. I don't rely on the cops doing their jobs right. What if they fuck up the trial, huh? What happens then?" 

"This is America, Frank!" she yelled. "Journalists aren't killed here like they are in other places." 

"You know they are!" he yelled back and they moved together in their anger, toward each other like that was the only time safe to do so. 

"You don't attach your name, just the Punisher's." her blue eyes glinted in the light, her teeth bared in a savage grin. "And journalists aren't killed as often as vigilantes hell bent on a form of justice that isn't bound up by the law." 

"I can take care of myself." 

"Are you implying I can't?" 

"You shouldn't have to!" he bellowed. "Christ Karen, what do I have to do to convince you that I like you best alive, and so does everyone else?" 

"Accept that I like you the same way," she said coolly. He stopped, realizing that they were now a foot apart, close enough for him to see the pilling on her tee-shirt and the way her lips were peeling from her biting them, a nervous habit. 

"I know you do good things," he relented, softening a bit. He didn't mean to get angry. It was just the thought of her in danger always sent him spiraling. Especially for how often his fears were valid. "I just wish you didn't have to be so fucking stubborn about it."

"Takes one to know one." she still sounded angry, but the corners of her mouth were twitching like they were tempted up into a smile. 

"Yeah, well." he rubbed the back of his head, a bit awkwardly. That was their problem, they both had a sense of honor and duty to do the right thing, to make things better, but too entangled in it to ever get free. "I just.... Wanted to make sure you're okay." 

"I'm fine," she repeated, yet again, but this time with something more genuine in her tone. Like she was a bit hopeful, a bit calmer. It made him calm down, somewhat. She would ask for help if she actually needed it. She had before. They both had. 

"Alright." he couldn't handle being so close to her; it was like the air got sucked slowly away from him, until his head spun. "I'll, uh, go." 

"Frank," she called, when he'd almost reached the door. "I....." she trailed off and then just looked at him with a helpless sort of shrug. 

He understood it. He understood that they both felt like there was too much between them, too much to surpass if they ever wanted things to change. She was always going to hunt down stories and he was always going to hunt down bad things and sometimes it led them to this, to a desperate want for keeping the other safe when it wasn't possible at all. 

They needed each other but so did everyone else and somehow, that hurt the worst of it all. 

"See you around Karen," he muttered, waving over his shoulder. He wouldn’t sleep tonight and he’d probably follow her to work the next few days, just in case. 

He didn't know what else to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise they won't all be so grim, i swear it!! reviews?


	3. HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON'T

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Cause I'm past the limits
> 
> The distance between us
> 
> It sharpens me like a knife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> angst. i promise it won't all be angst! 
> 
> (also in case it's not clear, these are all stand alone and in separate universes. canon? don't know her)

Karen wants to scream. She wants to throw something, shatter it, rage blindly, but she's perched on top of a bar stool, listening politely as Foggy rants, and has to keep a sincere smile plastered on her face.

He's telling her about Matt. She tries to care - she does - but it's hard to when her thoughts keep turning away from the conversation and back to the one she'd had three weeks ago.

With Frank.

It had started out normally enough. They'd gotten takeout and gone back to her place, eating and trading tips about the underbelly of New York, trying to suss things out between what was fact and what was rumor. A typical Thursday night for them, if there was such a thing. But then she'd suggested something.

That he let her go after someone.

His reaction had been pretty normal. He'd rolled his eyes, sighed deeply, shook his head, and tried to tell her all the reasons why that wasn't a great idea. She hadn't cared that much and had told him so. But what happened next, she could not have predicted whatsoever.

She told him it wasn't the first time she'd had to pull a gun on a man with bad intentions towards her. And it probably wouldn't be the last. He had stared at her in horror, while she had gritted her teeth. Then he'd told her it was too dangerous, like he always did. And she told him she didn't care, like she always did.

But then the conversation had turned.

She thinks about it now, her stomach still flipping unpleasantly with the reminder.

It was their thing to accuse the other of going blindly into danger without care or regard for the safety. It was their thing to skirt the fact that they cared so much about each other while caring so little for themselves. It was their thing to never say the words aloud - _I don't want you to get hurt. I don't want to lose you. I couldn't take it._

_I love you._

It was not their thing to yell at each other and certainly not about things savior complexes, martyrdom, and pigheadedness. It was not their thing to slam doors. It was not their thing to stalk away from each other and then spend three weeks, not talking, not meeting, not even putting flowers out as a way of saying 'I'm okay'.

"Karen? Are you listening?"

"What?" she startles out of her thoughts. "What? Yes."

"Really?" Foggy's eyes are narrowed. "You seem a million miles away."

"No," she tells him with a bright smile, thinking that it's not so many miles from here to Frank's apartment.

"You just seem.... Off."

"What does that mean?" she can't help but get a bit defensive; she sits here and listens to all of Foggy's problems, but when has he ever bothered to ask her about the things that trouble her? Did anyone even care?

A voice in her head reminds her that Frank cares. Why else would he yell? But why couldn't they just be honest with each other? Why couldn't she just tell him that she didn't want to change him. And he didn't have to protect her. They could do it together --

"See, like that," Foggy snaps and she cringes, knowing she's in her head yet again. "I am trying to tell you something and then you don't even listen."

"Sorry if I'm a bit distracted, it hasn't exactly been the easiest week," she tells him, a bit harshly. She's not lying - work was a bitch, she can never really sleep anymore, and everything feels like it's slipping away from her, bits at a time, and no matter what she does to try and grasp them, they still disappear. Frank still pulls away.

"We don't have to do this." Instead of giving her grace and understanding, Foggy begins to gather his bag up, finishing his drink. "If it's not a priority, then fine."

"Christ." her annoyance is real now, so she slams back her drink and leaves money on the table. "Nevermind then."

"Karen?" something slips into Foggy's voice - maybe now he realizes that he's made a mistake but she has no time for him.

"See you later." she pushes her chair in, just a bit too hard, and the glasses on the table rattle. She throws her bag over her shoulder and strides out, ignoring the bemused look on Foggy's face.

Outside, the cool night air lessens her temper somewhat. Foggy wasn't asking that much of her, really, just that she be present. But, she thinks as she takes a deep breath and decides to walk instead of taking a cab, maybe she's still a bit too raw to be with other people right now.

She knows the only person that will make it better is Frank. Try as hard as she might to avoid that line of thinking, it still comes around in full force. He's the only one she wants to talk to right now, the only one she wants to make things right with. But he's also the only person she refuses to talk to and so she keeps walking, alone, through the night.

* * *

Even the sound of a nose breaking under his fist does nothing to improve Frank's mood. Usually this sort of thing - beating a pedophile senseless - helps him think straight. It's easy, clear cut. Not at all confusing and infuriating and scary as the flashing blue eyes of one Karen Page.

It's the thought of her that drives him to stop, even if she is mostly the reason why he's on a rampage at the moment. He can hear her voice, clear as day, urging him to stop. To walk away. Because she thinks he's better than this, even if she understands exactly why he does it, and isn't scared of what he's capable of.

_""Frank, c'mon. Just.... Please Frank, c'mon."_

He leaves the man in a pool of his own blood. Maybe he'll be found. More likely than not, he won't be before the blood loss and cold get to him. That's not Frank's problem, as he slips out of the alley, hiding his bloody and bruised hands in the pockets of his hoodie. He's got different problems.

He's got Karen.

He sighs to even think about her. They haven't spoken in weeks, not since the fight. And it's not like he can bring that up with her, not right now. He's not even sure what she would say to him, if he dared show his face. But he can guess. Something witty, something cutting. Something that lodges itself in his heart and no about of tugging can get it out.

He can't bring himself to blame her for the fight. It's his fault. The way he’d reacted, the things he said, it was all on him. His fault, for letting the idea of her in danger get to him. It shouldn’t have. And he never should have called her out on it. But he couldn’t help himself.

The differences between her and Maria were always stark. Maria, with dark curls and shining brown eyes. Curvy and warm, always with a laugh on her lips. Karen holds herself differently, more constrained. Like even allowing herself to breathe too deeply will shatter her. Icy eyes, that light hair, and the fact that she always seems to run cold. Nothing like Maria.

But she inspires that same sort of panic. Like if something happens to her, his whole world might implode or lose direction. The idea had been on the fringes of his mind for awhile now, teasing him with the appearance. He could ignore it as long as he wasn’t with her, but her damned insistence on throwing herself into bodily harm brought it all crashing back.

Maria never gave him half the trouble. And part of him wonders if she’d love this man, the one he is now. If she could. It scares him to imagine that she couldn’t - and that Karen does. And he needs her, he needs that acceptance, and when he thinks about losing it, it’s like he loses his mind.

“Curt.” he knocks on his friend’s door. He needs a home. He needs to not be alone. He needs to not think about his fucking dead wife and his fucking…. whatever the hell Karen Page is.

“Well.” when Curtis opens the door, he doesn’t seem surprised. Nor does he flinch when Frank goes to wash his bloody hands in the sink. “Third time this week. Making it a pattern.”

“Yeah,” he grunts in response.

“Any reason why?” Curtis is prying, slightly, and Frank would be damned if it didn’t make him laugh.

“I gotta have a reason to clean up the filth?”

“You usually have a reason when something sets you off.”

“You think I’m being set off?” Frank turns on him, lips curling up in a sneer. “You know that?”

“Yeah.” Curtis leans against the counter. “And she called me to make sure you were still alive.”

“Yeah?” he can’t help the way his fingers twitch in response to the thought of her.

“So why are you still tearing through the streets like a one man kill squad, huh?” Curtis’s eyes search his face. “What’s she done to you, Frank?”

“Curt.” he tries to deflect, but he can’t. Not with Curtis, who’s known him for too long. “I…. Fuck. I….”

“Whatever the fuck it is, sort it out.” Curtis goes to change the channel. “Neither of you are better apart, I can tell you that much.”

It hurts Frank’s head to know he’s right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next one is happier. promise. 
> 
> (maybe)


	4. Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll stop wearing black when they make a darker color

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i honest to god meant less angst 
> 
> based on a comic i saw on tumblr and for the life of me, can't find again

She isn't sure when she learned to wake up at the lightest noise. She's not sure if she's just always been a light sleeper or if this is a gift that New York City has given her. But it doesn't matter, not when she snaps awake at 3 am and knows that someone is trying to get into her apartment. She holds very, very still, listening hard. 

A key in the lock. Someone trying to get in. She sits up in bed and reaches for the gun that she keeps at her bedside, carefully pushing her comforter back and easing out of bed. She's almost made it to her bedroom door when she hears it. 

Three knocks, rapidly, in a row. 

She drops the gun in relief and carefully puts the safety back on, setting it back on the table before going to the door. There's only one person in the world who would knock like that, have a key to her apartment, and be sneaking in at an ungodly hour. She leans against the door frame and looks at him. 

Frank. 

"I tried not to wake you," he remarks, back still to her, kicking off his boots. 

"It's better when you do." 

"Yeah, but then I wake you up." 

"Still better than sleeping through it," she points out and he grunts, dropping a duffel bag onto the floor and flipping the light on. 

"I hate when I wake you at this time.” he looks at the clock on the wall in the living room, broadcasting the time as 3:22 am. Karen’s mouth twitched slightly. 

“Then stop your nighttime escapades,” she suggests needlessly, without much real conviction. She and Frank have discussed this before and it always end with them coming to a stalemate; there are people to be saved and people to be killed. She’s not in the position to tell him to walk away. 

“I can stop harassing you,” he offers, going to the cupboard where she keeps the extra sheets that he uses to make the couch up into the bed. 

“And have you snuggling up with Ms. Cheng on the third floor?” Karen snorts, going to take the throw pillows off the couch. Frank looks up, mouth probably open to make some smart comment about how Ms. Cheng has a better couch than her, but then he stops entirely. 

“Kar….” the rest of his words disappear and Karen looks up at him in concern, wondering if he’d taken a hit she couldn’t see. He’d seemed fine when he walked in and she can’t see any blood right now, but that doesn’t mean he’s not concussed. He’s standing at the cupboard, the top sheet slipping out of his arms and slowly pooling on the floor. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks him, taking a half step closer to him. Frank’s eyes, dark and glinting in the disjointed light of the living room, flicker down her body for just the briefest of a moment before they snap back to her face. He resumes gathering the top sheet, determinedly not looking at her. 

Karen freezes, wondering what’s amiss. She knows she’s not wearing pants, but it’s the middle of a heat wave and when has she ever? It’s not like it’s bothered him before, so why would it start now? She pulls her hair back and looks down at herself, trying not to make it seem obvious. 

Laughter bubbles up before she can clamp it down. Of course this is what she’s wearing. A long day at work, a longer day in the unrelenting heat, an intense desire for bed, it had all led her to grab the loosest, biggest tee shirt she could find in her drawer. 

Black. With a massive white skull on it. 

It had been a joke gift from Frank himself, ironically. They’d taken a day, the last time Karen had been between stories and he’d been between whatever it was that Frank did, and they’d gone out to Coney Island. They’d needed a day of sunshine and no pressure to do or be anything. She’d bought them ice cream. Frank had told her stories about Lisa’s love and devotion to waffle cones over all else. It had been a good day. 

The guy selling novelty teeshirts had called out to them, probably thinking they were tourists who were looking for $5 souvenirs. But the teeshirt had been there, nestled between the ones advertising Coney Island, **I <3 NY**, and more. Frank had turned to her, eyebrows quirked and mouth raised up in a teasing smile, and asked if she wanted anything. He got her the shirt and it had seemed like a hilarious joke at the time. 

But she’d kept it. Folded it away and tucked it among all her others. And now she stands in her living room, wearing an imitation of Frank himself and she isn’t sure how to explain or justify it, not to him. She decides that if he’s ignoring it, she will as well, and reaches out to take the other side of the sheet. Wordlessly, they drape the sheet over the couch and Karen goes to tuck it in while Frank gets the pillows and a blanket. 

“Might sleep without this,” he mutters as he tosses it on the back of the couch. “Too goddamn hot.” 

“I’ve got fans going,” she said apologetically, “but the AC unit only works when it wants to, which is subjected to the whims of the universe so….” 

“You okay in there?” he glances at her bedroom and she nods. 

“Yeah, I’ve got the overhead fan going.” 

“Alright, well don’t stay up on the account of me,” he orders, sitting on the couch and pulling off his socks. Karen retreats to the doorway to allow herself to watch, just for a second. To make sure he’s not hurt, that’s what she tells herself. And that’s what she repeats, internally, as he undoes his belt, peels off his shirt, and then slides his pants down so that he’s just in his boxers. 

“Goodnight, Frank,” she says softly and he turns to look at her, full on. His mouth turns up in a smile, a real smile. Not the little smirk that he has when he’s being mischievous or teasing her.

“Didn’t think you’d keep it,” he admits and her fingers go to the hem unconsciously, halfway up her thighs. 

“It’s comfy,” she replies and Frank snorts. 

“Yeah, I think they made it for Andre the Giant.” 

“Well, it’s nice on nights like tonight.” 

“Yeah, it’s…. cute,” he tells her, a bit lamely and Karen smiles, biting back the little giggle that wants to escape from her mouth. 

“Cute?” she needles him and he waves a hand, rubbing the back of his head and laying down, muttering something she can’t quite catch. So she turns and goes back into her room. 

“Hey and Karen?” Frank calls and she pauses. “You can put the gun away, I got plenty in here.” 

“You’re the one coming over at 3 in the morning,” she retorts, but mostly to herself. 

Falling back asleep doesn’t come easily to her. The shirt, which previously was loose and baggy, suddenly seems all too tight and constricting. It is hot, sticking to her back and stomach. She keeps rolling over, laying this way and that, trying to get comfortable enough to fall back asleep. Frank has slept in her living room plenty of times. It’s never giving her trouble before; if anything when he’s here she usually sleeps better. 

She wonders what he’s thinking. If he thinks she’s strange for keeping it and wearing it. Sure, he’d been the one to buy it for her. But does he still think that it’s a rather macabre thing, the symbol of his worst moment on a teeshirt for all of New York to buy and wear? She still remembers the moment she slid the x-ray from its envelope. Her life had changed, for better or worse, in that one second it took her to trace the outline of the hole in his skull. 

Sleep finally comes to her, far too late, and she gets far too little before she awakes again to her alarm. She rolls over, shutting it off and rubbing her eyes. The heat is still overwhelming, but she rolls out of bed anyways and gathers her hair up in a bun. She pulls on running shorts and leaves the teeshirt, going to the kitchen. Of course, Frank is still fast asleep, sprawled over the couch. 

She turns on the coffee maker and pulls oatmeal out for breakfast. She leans on the back on the couch, inspecting Frank again. Bruised. Scarred. But he looks whole for the moment. She lets herself gently run a hand over his head, feeling the raised scars and prickly growth of hair. Frank, her Frank, made of fragile skin and blood and bone just like everyone else. 

She eats her oatmeal, drinks her coffee, and watches him sleep. She watches him with a little smile and lets the peace of the moment soak into her bones. It rarely happens, so she takes a moment to appreciate it. Then she gets up and goes to get dressed for her day. She leaves the shorts on the floor, tosses the teeshirt on the bed, pulls on the lightest, sheerest blouse she can find and a breathable cotton skirt, and twists her hair up off her neck. 

She bends down over her sleeping Frank and presses her lips to his temple. The fluttering of his pulse in his vein beats for her and she smiles, reassured that he’s okay. Then she leaves for for work, shutting the door behind her on his sleeping form. 

It’s another long, hot day in the city and Karen is weary when she gets home. She hopes that Frank is there, preferably with a beer and something cooking, but the apartment is empty when she opens the door. She sighs, setting her bag down in the exact spot where Frank’s boots were, and goes to get herself something to cool off with. She’s pressing a sweating beer to the back of her neck when she sees the pile on the couch. 

The blanket and top sheet, neatly folded and stacked on top of the pillow. And there, on top of it, is her teeshirt. The skull is on top and Karen wanders over to it with a small smile on her face. When she raises the fabric up to her nose, it still smells like Frank. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reviews are love!!


	5. Church

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you were church
> 
> I'd get on my knees
> 
> Confess my love, I'd know where to be
> 
> My sanctuary, you're, you're holy to me, you're holy to me

So this was what it was like. To crave physical touch in the same way one could crave a bottle or a needle. A tangible, desperate ache that could not be thought away. It actually almost made his hands shake, the merest thought of her. And no matter what he did, no matter how many times he thought he outran it, buried with another fight and another night of fitful sleep, he still wound up here. On her doorstep. Looking at the peephole of her apartment, thinking about her inside of it. He raised a fist to knock, before it was suddenly yanked open.

“Jesus Christ Frank,” she swore, placing a hand over her chest. “What the hell are you doing here? Are you okay?”

A question that always had to be answered first. “Yeah, I am. Are you on your way out?” she was dressed in one of her silk blouses for work, this one with tiny daisies woven into it.

“No, actually, I was seeing if I got a package.” she rolled her eyes upon finding nothing on her welcome mat but his dirty boots. “Come on in.”

“Sorry for the interruption.” he hovered in the entry, pulling off his jacket. “Were you busy?”

“Only if you count finishing this off.” she wiggled a half empty bottle of wine. “I sent my latest story to proofing about 30 minutes ago. Don’t tell anyone I was doing some drunk editing.”

“Hemingway said to do it the opposite way,” he offered, setting his boots beside her high heels.

“That quote is misattributed to him. If anyone did that, it was Faulkner.” she was already pouring him a glass. She was still wearing work clothes, but bare foot in the living room, now turning down the news.”What are you doing on my doorstep then? How can I help?”

The truth burned his tongue, so he cooled it with a drink of the wine. “Just needed some company.”

“Oh.” she looked so sympathetic, he could tell she was thinking of his family. He wanted to tell her no, tonight he didn’t need refuge from the memories, the screams, but from his own selfish desires. “Well, bring the bottle. Or there’s some vodka, beer, whatever. Make yourself at home. I think there’s pizza in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

He was hungry for something. 

“Yeah thanks,” he muttered, setting the bottle on the coffee table and taking up residence in a ratty chair. Karen opted for the couch, folding her knees under her neatly. “How’s work?”

Karen liked to share her work. And he liked listening. She always knew what was happening, the heartbeat beneath the streets. And she understood him, better than almost anyone. And she liked that he could keep up with her and would never judge her for her opinions. He’d spent enough time with Matt to know the value in that. So he listened, nodding, pretending that he wasn’t watching the shimmer of her hair in the lights or the way that he could practically see the pulse of her neck, in a sensitive spot.

The first time he’d felt this, he had told himself it was a disrespect to Maria. His wife. Still his wife. Always his wife. She was the only one for him. But Karen never pushed it. Never asked for anything more. Never even hinted at it. She held him when he was broken. She helped him when he couldn’t do it alone. And she was so damn soft in his arms, but so full of sharp edges when she wasn’t, and damn if that wasn’t his kind of woman.

It hadn’t been, once. Before. He liked Maria because while she had fire and wit, she wasn’t bloodthirsty. Not like him. He could look at her and pretend he wasn’t covered in blood. But his life now, he wasn’t allowed that illusion. The blood stained too deep. But Karen Page had some blood on her too.

And it almost made his mouth water.

The sunset outside her window. They talked about the news, they talked about her next project, they talked about anything and everything that wasn’t them. They drank, first the wine, then some beers, then she finally brought out the pizza and the vodka and it wasn’t long before he felt drunk enough to catch her hand when she walked by him, fingertips trailing over his shoulder like they usually did.

She jerked to a stop when he held her, looking down at him in a bit of confusion and…. Anticipation? Daring? Like she knew. So, never breaking his eye contact with her, he brought her knuckles up to his lips and ghosted them in a kiss, noting that the hairs on her arms rose.

She held very, very still. She always did when he kissed her - on the cheek, down by the waterfront. On the forehead, in a steely elevator. And, less than a month ago, the softest brush of their lips in an alley one night, where she’d told him off for something or another.

That, he reflected, was the moment he lost. Where the dam, the self control he’d exerted over himself, had dissolved utterly. Because she hadn’t pulled him in for a deeper kiss. She hadn’t demanded, afterwards, what the hell it all meant. Hadn’t made him feel like it was a betrayal for his Maria, his wife, his always but gone. She had blood on her hands, so did he. Could he hold her and not stain her?

He gave her a gentle tug, to bring her closer to him. She came willingly but hesitantly, giving him the time to let her go and pretend this was nothing. He could release her and this would be nothing. But want was singing in his veins and she was right in front of him and all he could think about was what did she taste like? He wanted so badly to know.

She bent before him, her blue eyes still so wide. Okay? Okay. Okay. He only had to stretch a little, to be close enough to reach the other hand up and wrap it around the back of her head. A luxury he’d only ever allowed himself when they were hurt, when he thought that a single, blessed hair on her head was going to be damaged. He drew her down to him, so that he could see the faintest scar on her forehead. Lewis.

But tonight, it wasn’t a reminder of anger. It was something to be grateful for, the girl who risked everything for him, who he would give anything for. He knew her feels about him. She’d made them known, not through words or demands but support. Endless, unwavering, firm support. She never doubted him. Not for a second. And that meant something.

“Kar….” he whispered quietly and she reached out now, her free hand going to brush up his cheekbone and then around his eye. He had too many scars for her to trace. Instead she brought her hand down to his chest, over his beating heart. She must have felt it, beating a steady, if a bit quick, tattoo against her palm. Then she looked at him, her blue eyes full of fire. Wasn’t blue fire hotter, anyways?

“Frank.” one word. He knew that if he asked her to walk away right now, she could. She was a saint, an angel, too good for him by a mile. But he also knew that if he tried to tell her that, she’d remind him that she was nothing but human and humans make mistakes, carry grudges, have secrets. He knew that. He knew her.

And he wanted her.

“Please.” his voice was low, husky. Like it was back in the hospital bed, the first time he’d seen her and realized that there was nothing like Karen Page. _You stay, please._

Wasn’t he asking the same thing of her now? Wasn’t he asking her that, always?

She nodded, then straightened up with her hands outspread. She’d pull him to his feet. The bedroom wasn’t more than three steps away from the couch, tiny New York real estate on a journalist salary. He took them, his rough palms against her soft ones. She hauled him up, to his feet.

She’d done it before. She’d likely have to do it again. But she always did.

He thought he loved her for that.

She led him to the bedroom, shutting the door with her foot when he walked by. His mouth was dry now; he’d been so consumed with deciding if he should and shouldn’t, that he never thought about what would happen when he did. But, as usual, Karen was there to guide him. She came around in front of him - still with the distance that he could push away and end this all - but close enough for him to reach out and snag her in his arms, pulling her close.

He forgot what it was like to kiss. Not a peck, not an ambush (he liked Sarah, but not like that, never like that) but a steady, proper kiss where the other person seemed to be holding back as much as him. He kissed her, then pulled back to let his head stop spinning. Karen waited, patiently, as always, and once he could think again, he lowered his mouth back down to her.

She tasted like vodka. He liked it.

After a few kisses, she seemed to open up to the idea he’d been trying to plant the whole night. That he wasn’t going to bolt. That he was going to stay, going to let her push past wherever they’d been before. And when she threw her arms around his neck to pull him closer, his heart sung. And when she bit his lip, a light nip, his body trembled. And when his hands went from her hips to her small breasts, any notion that tonight he was the Punisher faded.

He was just Frank. And Frank needed Karen.

He pushed her back towards the bed, knowing that she’d hit it sooner than later. She did and almost tumbled backwards, but he caught her wrist, leaving her hovering a foot or so above the covers. she looked up at him, breathless and flushed.

“Let me go,” she breathed and he knew she meant onto the bed, but every fiber in his being rebelled against the very notion, not when he finally had her.

“Hell no,” he growled and chose to come down with her instead. It took a moment for him to not have an elbow on her hair (she had so much of it, but now it was a bit inconvenient instead of beautiful like usual) and have him hovering about her, looking down. He could see the heat in her eyes, see it in the blush of her fair skin, and he thought that he didn’t deserve so much happiness but he wanted to take this little bit and make it last.

He helped her out of her blouse, watching as the daisies fell to the floor in a wrinkled heap. She was wearing a bra, plain and unfussy. He loved that about her too. All business, his Karen Page. A badass in five inch heels. He felt her chest rise and fall, rapidly, as he traced one finger down from her collarbone to her ribs to her hip. She lifted them and a second later, her skirt was sliding down those long legs.

He was a bit at loss. He hadn’t really expected to get this far. He thought he’d stop it or she might have, told him to sober up on the couch and then go home. But he hadn’t, she hadn’t, and it was now occurring to him that an inch of skin that went unkissed by him seemed like an awfully big waste.

He lost track of time there for a minute, kissing the crease of her elbow and the hollow of her ankle and otherwise being generally convinced that her perfection meant he was unworthy. And her little breathy moans and sighs didn’t help him believe that this wasn’t all a dream.

Frank knew how to have sex. Started a bit too young honestly, but who were his parents to stop him? He hadn’t forgotten how to have sex, no. He was just going slow, to appreciate the things he might have missed. Karen, for her part, seemed to appreciate it. And he was feeling like an alcoholic sitting down on a bar stool - minutes away from trouble, but not able to stop.

He could kiss her all he wanted, he could delay the inevitable, but then the driving need in his chest - and lower, if he was being honest - made him draw back to her hips, where he slid two fingers around the scrap of fabric. He looked up at her, needing her yes for this and she gave it by throwing her head back and bringing her hips up again with a little moan. He slid her knees apart with one hand then lowered his head like she was the only thing that could slake his desperate thirst.

He did forget how wonderful this was. The taste, the touch, the sound of Karen gasping and then writhing beneath him. Sometimes his frustration was distracting enough, but right now, it was far from his mind. All that mattered was Karen. Her pleasure. Her wants. And if it all ended after this, that would be fine. This was enough. This was everything.

He went on instinct, listening to Karen. He did not mistake her for Maria; they were always two separate things in his mind, but he didn’t know Karen’s body like he did Maria’s. This was all new. He had to be patient, to watch and react to her, fine-tuning as he went. And then she was arched like a cat under his, hips thrust up into the air and she was keening. All he knew was more, more, more, whatever it took for her and then she was smacking his shoulder, twitching and jerking.

“Ease off, ease off,” she was half yelling, still between little hitches of her breath. He pulled back with the greatest reluctance and she collapsed under him, limp.

“Sorry,” he told her, even though he really wasn’t.

“Eager,” she teased, with a half smile that told him she knew why. He kissed her on her forehead again and then realized her hands were busy with his shirt and the button to his jeans, so he helped her remove him of both. Then it was her turn to flip him on his back so that she could kiss him. Kiss every single scar, hands trailing over his chest. He about lifted his head to look to see if she left sparks in her wake, but this felt too good. He closed his eyes in bliss.

She kissed both his hip bones, like a warning that she was going to drift between his legs. He appreciated it, because when she gently gripped him at his base and then ever so gently placed him between her lips, he felt like he was going to shatter to pieces then and there. But she was slow, careful. Her hands were the first he ever trusted to hold his, afterwards. He trusted her with anything. Everything.

He wanted to watch her, to see her skin glistening and watch as she moved, but his eyes kept drifting shut in hazy pleasure. She wasn’t overwhelming him, but he was working damn hard to make sure she didn’t. He wasn’t a teenager anymore, but it had been so long for him. And he was going to enjoy it.

Eventually her mouth and hand wasn’t enough. He liked the warmup, the way that her tongue darted out and sent shocks up his spine, but he needed more. He needed her. So he pulled her up so that he could kiss her and ask her, silently, if she was ready. She nodded, then crashed her kiss against his lips. He still wanted to explore her, so he guided her to her knees and came behind her, pressing her back to his chest. It took some guiding to get the angles right, but then she was right there, warm and flush against him.

He slid in with a deliberate slowness, not wanting to rush her or bring himself completely undone before he’d really had a chance to start. Her hips sank against his as he pushed up and then, with a hiss, he felt her entirely around him. He used one hand to palm her breast and then other to trace her sides. She shivered like it tickled but then he was grinding his hips and she was moving with him.

It felt like heaven. He’d never been a man for worship, but he would be damned if he didn’t kneel at this alter. He remembered now, the love, the joy, the beauty of this. And he held Karen, buried his face in her hair to smell her, still tasted her on his lips, felt their bodies move together.

Frank Castle could no longer be soft, but he still knew softness.

He rocked back and forth, rolling her nipple in his fingers to feel it harden, ran his hand up her slim throat and heard her gasp. She felt so good, he tipped his head back and saw stars behind his eyes. He could only think of her, of how badly he’d craved this and now that he’d given in, he was sure he’d be back for more. This wasn’t just sex for a man who’d gone a little too long without; this was touch for a man who’d only known violence for so long.

He was so close, his arms snaked around Karen and pulled her back, back into him, so that every inch of her warm skin was on his, like if he just squeezed tight enough, he could soak her in and ease all his hurts with her love. When he came, he ducked his head into the crook of her neck, gasping.

If she felt the two tears that slid off his cheek and onto her collarbone, she was gracious enough not to say anything.

They both sank down onto the bed, reluctant to untangle. Then she lifted herself off him - he sucked in a breath at the cool air - and turned to face him, still on her knees, eyes searching his face. He knew the worry written there. This was a big step, a bigger step than they’d ever taken. Well, smaller than the one she’d taken across the red line to show him a photo of his family and changed the entire course of both their lives. But this was up there.

He touched her face. She was still so young. He felt like he might corrupt her in that way, drag a pretty young thing into his old, broken life with no future, but she’d told him over and over she’d already made that choice. She kept picking him. And he never had to pick her; she was the only option, ever. She was his only, now.

He learned forward and kissed her, as slowly and carefully as he could. When he pulled back, she had that same expression on her face from the elevator - hope and fear and something deeper, wrapped into one. So he leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together.

“You’re a shinning star, no matter who you are,” he rumbled and she gave a watery sort of chuckle. “Shining bright to see, what you could truly be….”

He fell asleep with her in his arms and he didn't dream, he didn't wake up gasping that he was the one to shoot his wife and children, he didn’t relive his worst moment over and over again. He watched her sleep in the light of the morning and thought, maybe, he could pray again.

But only to her.


	6. Heaven's Gate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I got dreams of my own
> 
> But I want to make yours come true
> 
> So please come through
> 
> Honey please, please come through

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why am i writing this scene
> 
> oh right
> 
> the yearning

Three deep breaths. That was all it took. Three deep breaths. Calm her mind, calm her racing heart, calm her anxious energy that was threatening to seep out of her at every turn. Just take three deep breaths and try not to go absolutely insane. Easier said than done. 

How many times was she going to sit here, in a damned uncomfortable hospital chair, and stare at him? How many times could she lie and worm her way to his side, to hold this vigil? She hated it. She hated this job, but she would never give it up. Not when it was Frank lying there. 

He was always bloody. So, so bloody. It killed her to see him like this. It always brought her right back. Had she ever known a time when he wasn't bloody? If she did, she didn't remember it. When she conjured his face in her mind, it was always stained and swollen and bruised. 

But would he be hers any other way? 

She wondered how often Maria saw him like this. It couldn't be as often as she did. Surely, when he had a family, he didn't spend his evenings in bars, beating men. He didn't have to avoid assassins and ambushes, didn't have to fight every single step he took. She must have known him, known his smile without it being bright with blood, known his eyes sparkling instead of ringed black, known his large hands without scars crisscrossing the knuckles. 

What it would be like, to know that Frank. 

She sighed, shifting in her seat, her thighs already going numb. She thought to herself, wryly, that some couples had a booth at a restaurant or a table at a coffee shop. She and Frank had hospital rooms and beds with cuffs on the rails and machines that gave her a flimsy reassurance that he was alive and breathing, going to open his eyes and look at her and they'd resume this sort of dance around each other. 

Her mind wandered to what it must have been like for him, to wake up the first time, alone. He'd wanted to go home, she remembered that from the nurse telling her. And that was how she'd caught his attention - talking about his home. The photo she'd flashed in his face. She'd seen the devastation in his eyes; he hadn't fought the restraints once, until that moment. Until them. 

She sighed and closed her eyes, slipping off her shoes and curling her legs under herself. She would be here for awhile, no sense in denying the obvious. No one knew that she was here. She was half shocked that her ruse at the door went so well. Like she'd tell Matt or Foggy what she was doing. She could trust them with a lot, but not this. Not Frank. 

She knew she should be thinking about a plan to get him out of here, but she was so tired. And he had to be too. She thought it was getting better. He was getting better. Less Punisher, more... Pete. Or Frank. Whoever. Less blood and guts and bullets and gore. She hadn't heard from him, but she'd kept tabs. Moving towards normalcy. Moving towards his after. 

Then this. She didn't know what to make of most of it, but she knew it had to be bad. It had to be about his family. That was the only thing that could send him into a spiral like this - to make him lash out so violently. She understood. She understood his grief and pain. Wasn't that what had drawn them together in the first place? 

She just wanted to sleep. Just for a moment. When he was in front of her, as safe as he ever was, where she could reach him. That was more than she had nearly every other day. She took this moment to rest and relished it; for once her mind wasn't spinning with worry for him. That would come later. Of that she had no doubt. 

How much time had passed? It didn’t matter - the second she saw his nose twitch, then his eyes scrunch, it faded away. She leaned forward, heart in her throat, barely able to speak. 

“Frank?” it was so hard to breathe. He struggled to sit up; she knew where that route would take them. She’d seen it before. She pressed her hands to his shoulders, trying to keep him still. “Hey, how are you feeling?" a stupid question when he was on pain meds, but he wouldn't look at her. 

And that scared her. 

"It's kind of familiar, isn't it?" she searched his face desperately, trying to catch a glimpse of him behind this mask. But he wouldn't look, his head purposefully turned. "So, um I watched the news. I’m assuming this has something to do with Billy Russo." she pulled back, slightly. Just enough. "What? Did he see you coming? Frank?” 

"You should walk away." his voice was gruff. He was staring out the window and she was sure it wasn't for the view. One finger of his hand jumped, twitching. Trigger finger. One shot, one kill. Only when he felt vulnerable. God, her heart broke for the man.

"What? You think you can scare me off that easy? You know better than that." her words were so tender. How could he not hear the love infused there? Or maybe he did. She hoped, but there wasn't time for that. Not right now. "Besides, I don't really think you want me to go. Look, it's a tough situation. It's nothing we haven't dealt with before. We just have to figure out what to do about it." she stood at the end of the bed and stared at him, waiting until his brown eyes finally met hers. 

She was startled by the pain she saw there. It was a different sort of pain, one that she didn't know. It looked like guilt. 

"I did it." his voice broke on the words. "Karen, I killed three women."

The words made her want to take a physical step back but she held her ground. She knew this was a possibility. She knew that there were things he was capable of, things like this. But it wasn't who he was. She just had to figure it out.

"Maybe I could help." 

"Yeah, you're not gonna fix this." he sounded so bitter and dismissive already. It irked her, got under her skin. Was she the only one that valued his life? Did he not care in the slightest? 

"Okay? Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you did." she can feel her heart thumping against her chest. It was painful. "It doesn't change how I feel about you." 

"It should." he still wouldn't look at her and it killed her. 

"It doesn’t." she walked back over and sat at his side, just to prove it. 

* * *

A nurse came in and gave him a shot; it made him drowsy and put him back to sleep. Karen sat there and stared at him, wanting to simultaneously kiss him and hold the pillow over his face and smother him. Stupid, stubborn, selfish man. Who also had a heart of gold and was better than everyone else here. 

He awoke with a jerk, gasping for air like a drowned man. She lurched to her feet, stomach bottoming out, alarmed at what seemed like true panic on his face as he pulled against his restraints like he wanted to come up swinging.

"What's that all about, huh?" she demanded, catching his hands. He stared at her, wild eyed, but with a vulnerability she so rarely saw there. For a second it seemed like he didn't even see her, like he was looking right through her, but then something broke and his breath caught, squeezing her hands. 

"This dream is always the goddamn same. Christ." he looked at their hands, entangled together. Karen's heart was pounding, but she just watched him. Watched as he saw her and remembered. "We just loved doing that. Maria and the kids They're there, but I can't reach 'em. You know, I I can't tell them that the monster's coming." pain flashed across his face and Karen felt the same thing slash across her heart, an open wound for him that bled. 

"Day they died, I told Maria that I was done, that I wasn't going back. I'd just got home the night before. And when I woke up, I saw her face. It just came at me. But, like, the second it did, I knew it was right." a little smile crept over his face, a fond memory. Karen could imagine his joy, Maria's relief, the happiness at being a family again. "It was like this this weight got got lifted off my shoulders, you know?" his voice broke and she saw the tears glimmering in his eyes. "For both of us, you know? She knew it was right. The kids, too. I was just ready, you know? It was time. I just I wanted to be with them. But that day, we went to that park, and the kids were too old for that stupid carousel, but that day they just laughed, you know? They were laughing. We were all laughing like idiots." a tear slipped out and her heart broke for him. She could just see him. 

"And that laughter, it stuck with me, you know? After I lost them, it would just It would echo, you know? It was over and over. And it wasn't just in my dreams. It was, like It was in my heart, you know? And I just I wanted to hold onto it. I wanted to live in it and just hear that laughter, but thing is, I can't hear it anymore. It's all I had. It's gone. It's gone. You know, and all I have is the looks on their faces after the bullets ripped through their bodies. You see, the thing is, Karen, is they had time, yeah? They didn't die straight away. They had time." he shook his head and she had tears of her own, but she held them back. This was his grief. 

"My son, Frankie, you know, he, he tried to be brave, he tried to fight, but... My daughter, too. They just looked at me like like, "Why, Daddy?" They didn't understand. Like, "Why? Why?" I think about those women, you know? What were their faces like, you know? What were they thinking about when my bullets, my bullshit, when it ripped right through them and ended everything they had," he broke off, his voice hitching and she scrambled to keep his hands within hers, to provide him any sort of comfort. 

"Frank, no, you didn't know," she tried, knowing that he was going to shake his head and dismiss her but trying it anyways. "You didn't know they were there."

"It's not that I didn't know. I didn't care. I didn't care." his eyes searched her face, like he was trying to make her understand. "Right then, I would've killed anything that got in my way. You know what that means, right? Now I'm the monster." he sat back and she could only stare at him, realizing the resigned set of his shoulders meant that there was no other way to talk him of out this. "Yeah. If any of those pieces of shit that I killed, if they deserved to die so do I."

She didn't know what else to say; she stared at their hands as she tried to figure it out. Her first thought upon hearing the news was that Frank hadn't done it. Couldn't have done it. But here he was in front of her, clearly telling her that he had. And it killed her.

But it didn't change anything. And she raised her head to tell him, to tell him-- 

"You need to leave. I'm here to perform an exam, and he has to get naked." the nurse wheeling the computer into the room looked about twelve and Karen's radar immediately went off, validated a moment later when Frank heaved a long suffering sigh.

"Jesus Christ." 

"What? You know her?" she demanded, looking at him. If he had a plan, she wanted to be in on it. 

"Who are you?" the girl seemed almost defensive. The fact that she looked so young was what alarmed her; what was he wrapped up in and why did he bring a kid with him? 

"Uh, I'm Karen Page, and I'm guessing that you're not a nurse. Who are you?" she looked to Frank when she was silent. "Frank?"

"Nobody. She's nobody." 

"Yeah, that's right. I'm the nobody who came to get you out." she was pulling a lock pick from her thick braid; Karen couldn't lie, she was a little impressed. She seemed like Karen's type of girl, which made sense she was running around with Frank. 

"God damn it." Frank clearly wasn't in on this plan, given the amount of annoyance in his voice. 

"Thanks a bunch. You look awful. Can you, like, move or anything? No?" the girl ignored Frank, trying to pick the lock on the cuffs. "Well, it doesn't matter. You're gonna have to. Hey. Goddamn it. Listen to me, Frank. We have to get out of here before they come." 

"You need to leave now," Frank stated and Karen felt a little better that she wasn't the only one he was shoving out of his life. 

"Who's "they"?" she demanded, feeling like she was missing every other page in a book they were all otherwise reading. 

"'They' is every hit man in New York. There's a five million dollar bounty on our heads, and it's pretty easy to collect with you cuffed to a bed." the girl explained and Karen's stomach bottomed out. And to think she'd felt so safe only a moment ago.

"Is that true?" she demanded of Frank but he wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the doorway, a long suffering figure standing there.

"Are you kidding me?”

"Well, shit. Looks like the gang's all here." brown eyes swept the room, landing on her. "Karen."

"Dinah." she sized her up.

"Madani, you need to get her out of here. She's in danger. She needs to be protected." Frank was talking about the girl and Karen's heart hurt again. Of course she was in trouble, whoever the girl was. Frank drew those people to him then went to hell and back to protect them. He didn't realize that it was that specific quality about him that tied them together. 

"Is this from the man in the black hat again?" Madani asked and Karen glanced at Frank, trying to see if he understood what she meant better than she had, but he was still studiously avoiding her eyes. 

"No, apparently they need protection from every hit man in New York. Or so she says." Karen looked at the girl again, wondering. "Whoever she is." 

"She is Frank's new little helper. You should watch your purse with her," Madani muttered and Karen bit back a smile. Well, that tracked. 

"Look, why are hit men after you?" Karen turned back to Frank, trying to get answers, but he wouldn't look at her. Anger bubbled up in her chest and she wanted to grab him chin and drag him to face her, his injuries be damned. 

"It's a long story. I don't -“ the girl tried to start but Frank cut her off with an eye roll.

"God. She'll tell you the whole thing once you get out of here." his voice was rough, dismissive. Fighter Frank's tone. "It is not safe for you to be here."

"Well, I'm not leaving without you. Can't you just, like, wave your stupid badge around or something? Get him out?" the girl turned to Madani, long braid swinging. Karen had to physically bite her tongue to stop herself from smiling; she liked her despite herself.

"No, I can't," Madani said flatly, arms crossed. Karen could see though, behind her dark brown eyes, the faintest hint of something, amusement or perhaps admiration. Or maybe just deep, deep annoyance. 

"Well, he's gonna get killed either here or in jail. Either one, he doesn't deserve. Will you please help me get him out?" the girl directed her question to both of them and it brought Karen back to the reality of the situation. Frank, hospital bed, bounty, clear and pressing dangers from all sides.

"I wanna help, but we can't just walk him out like this," she reminded her, ignoring Madani glaring at them and Frank's heated gaze on the back of her head. 

"Didn't I ask you to stay with Curtis? Did I say that? - What did I say to you?" he kept demanding, and Karen and the girl both turned to argue with him, talking over each other in frustration until Madani silenced them, standing at the foot of the bed with wild eyes focused on the her phone and the voice coming from it. 

"So why don't you come down here, Billy? Join the party?" she questioned harshly and Karen's heart dropped down to her toes. 

"Can he hear me?" the voice made her shiver and she looked between Madani and Frank, but they were both gone from the room now. Billy Russo had ensnared them both and held them. 

"Yes."

"How's it feel, Frankie? To be locked up in a cage like an animal? To be confined to a room with nothing but your miserable thoughts to comfort you?" his voice was almost mad, feral in a way. Karen watched Frank's face but there was nothing there. Nothing at all. "Nothing temporary about that pain. It's like a waking death. Like you're burning in hell. Yeah. Yeah, you're your own devil now, Frankie boy. And you are no better than me."

"Are you done, Bill?" he asked, almost lazily and Karen thought about the depth of pain being hidden away there. His best friend. The murderer of his family. And now, this torture. She wanted to reach for him, but she held herself back. 

"No, you, you're done! And every day, you'll remember that I'm the one that put you there. Isn't that just how it goes? I win, Frank. I win.”

* * *

Her conversation with Madani hadn't made her feel much better. They'd cleared out of the room, partially to give Frank space, partially to give Madani a quiet place to regain her cool, and mostly to talk, without Frank or his accomplice hearing them. And while it was reassuring that she didn't think Frank would murder those women, it didn't solve the current problem of Frank's imminent death. 

But she could help with his innocence. And she hoped that would give him the drive to fight again. 

She had a few favors she could call in on Ed. But this one took the biggest, the unspoken one that Ed had been requesting since she first asked him for a peek at some files. But this was Frank, for Frank, and there was nothing she wouldn't do. 

And he'd confirmed that it hadn't been Frank - wrong trajectory, wrong range, wrong everything. 

Worth it. 

Chaos greeted her when she made it back to Frank's hospital room. The girl was gasping, her throat already ringed red. Madani went to her, but Karen went to Frank.

"Jesus Christ."

"You okay?" she could see in his eyes, the panic and fear. He'd fought his restraints, maddened. 

"God damn you! I told you to stay away! I told you!" he bellowed and it sunk in to her that this girl meant something to him. She helped her stagger up, but then she pulled away, going to kick the would-be assassin. 

"You mother scratcher!" each word was punctuated by a kick. Then, enraged, she turned on Frank. "What was that, huh? You were just gonna let him do it? You were just gonna let him kill you?"

"Frank, you didn't do it. You didn't kill those women." she leaned over him, invading his space, trying to get him to look at her. Trying to get him to understand. 

"What are you talking about?" a tiny frown on his face, like he thought she was lying to him.

"They were dead before you arrived. Billy set you up." Madani stood at the end of the bed.

"You're not the monster. You never were." her heart felt like it was glowing, now that the dark dread had lifted. He was still her Frank. 

"This is all great, but it helps absolutely nothing right now, okay? That was a cop that just tried to kill him. And then me. I mean, what's next, a nurse?" the girl demanded and Karen's joy faltered, slightly. That was a point. 

"Why don't you get those keys and get these cuffs off? I'm gonna go take care of him." Frank had no time to accept his innocence; Karen was sure he still didn't believe her. But she knew he was and that felt like it mattered. 

“Frank, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Madani was yelling. 

"Get the keys. I'll take care of it." Frank was insistent. 

"You need a plan. You have to listen to us, okay?" Karen's voice was the loudest of them all and everyone went quiet, staring at her. She took a deep breath, then was surprised to hear Frank's low grumble. 

"I need the two of you to walk out, okay? Please, just give us a second alone. Madani, please, just one second." she gave her a pleading look and accepted the keys from the girl. Madani's eyes didn't leave Frank's face, but she left. Then it was the two of them and every hair on Karen's body lifted at Frank's low grumble. "Can I ask you something? That Matt Murdock, does he know you're here?" Karen felt her stomach take a hard dive and she looked away involuntarily, as the door clicked shut behind them. "Yeah, that's what I thought." Frank's voice broke, ever so slightly. 

"What does that have to do with this?" she couldn't see the connection. Frank and Matt had never occupied the same place in her mind. They might've, had her life been simpler. But the fact was, Matt was Matt and Frank was.... Everything. 

"Come on, Karen. He's good. Don't throw that away for me." she wanted to answer him, to tell him that there was nothing to throw away and even if there was, he'd be worth it, but her anger was rising. She went to get the cuffs off, not trusting herself not to yell at him if she opened her mouth. And it felt good, to make him work for her attention, like she'd been since she walked in here."Hey. You gotta walk away now, Karen. Come on, Karen. Look, I know you. All right? You're brave. You're strong, all right. But you are so goddamn stubborn, and you will throw everything away for me, and I cannot let that happen, all right?"

"So, it's okay for them to risk everything, but not me?" she took at the end of the bed, her anger nearing it's peak. He could call her stubborn, but birds of a feather and all that. 

"Karen, don't do that. Look, that kid needs me to stay alive, all right? Eff Madani. Madani, she's as batshit and lost as I am. I mean, she's lost, Karen. It's not the same." he was pleading, slightly, and she was drawn to his side, like she always was.

"What if there's a better way? What if there is? What if you and I figure it out together?" it was her hope. She voiced it and saw the tears that glistened in Frank's eyes and her heart felt like it was shattering, breaking into a thousand pieces in front of him, and she already knew his answer. 

"No. No, there's no.... There's no - warm, cozy ending. Not for me." 

"Frank, listen to me. You can't keep loving people in your dreams." the dam in her burst and she was yelling at him, but she couldn't help it. He thought himself a monster, a murderer. And perhaps he was. But that didn't mean anything to her, not the girl who was broken too. And she needed him. 

"There's no light at the end of the road, Karen. There's no light." his voice was a whisper and it scared her more than anything - this was what he truly thought of himself then.

"There could be if you let it." she knew that she was going to lose this battle. But maybe she could lose it and still win this war. 

"No."

"You could choose to love--"

"I don't want that. I can't."

"--someone else instead of another war." it was her last hope. She wasn't asking him to lay down his weapons. She knew he couldn't. But he didn't need to make war, constantly, at the sacrifice of his soul. She just needed him to see that no matter what, she accepted him. 

She loved him. 

"No. I don't want to." it would have broken her heart, except she could hear the lie in his voice, before he switched his attack. "You know something? That kid out there, she's got people that want to kill her. Serious people, Karen. So that means I'm gonna go and find them and I'm gonna kill them. I'm gonna murder them, Karen."

"Yeah." she knew that. She never doubted that. 

"I'm gonna do that to keep her alive, because that's my life. That's what I do. You wanna be a part of that?" she pulled the cuff off, fed up with going in circles with him. If he couldn't see - couldn't accept - that she'd seen the worst of him and didn't care, still loved him, then she was going to go. "Hang on. Just God. Karen, I can't tell you how much it means to me that you came here." she couldn't face him. "You sat with me."

"So make it mean something.” she watched as he got up, a little unsteady on his feet, and came to her. He looked her up and down and she felt like her being was on fire, back to the nearness of him. Her breath trembled and she could see now, every bruise and stitch and hurt that had been done to her. 

"I gotta walk out of here, and you can't do it with me." his voice was almost a whisper and she was reminded of a time, not too long ago, in an elevator where it was so similar and so different, all at once. She reached out to him, unable to stop herself, just to feel that he was real and solid and alive, just this once and if it was the last time... "Just--" 

"You guys are the cutest. I'm almost jealous. But, uh, do you mind if we continue this heart-to-heart once we're outta here?" the girl was back, the spell was broken, and Karen stepped away from Frank. 

"Yeah." Madani followed the girl in, her eyes all knowing. "Karen, it's time." 

"Time?" Frank looked between them. "Time for what? Karen?" 

"Bye Frank." she wanted to say more, but now wasn't the time. Later. Later would be better. She gave Madani a nod on her way out, acutely aware of the cold hospital on her bare feet. She'd have time to think later. To process. But there was the fire alarm and she used her elbow, glass shattering around her. 

Again and again. Give him time to get to safety. Get him free. 

"Karen? What happened to your shoes?" Mahoney's face was incredulous and she knew that he knew, but there was no proof. And that was enough. 

"I gave 'em away for a worthy cause," she answered and saw the desire on his face, to question her, but the alarms were blaring and he had a choice to make. He wavered and then dashed off, like she knew he would. She took a deep breath. "Good luck, Frank."

They'd meet again. She'd make sure of it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reviews are life, reviews are love


	7. Champion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm just young enough to still believe, still believe
> 
> But young enough not to know what to believe in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this got out of hand, so, so, SO quickly. 
> 
> but a HS AU deserves it doesn't it???

Karen Page blew a strand of errant hair out of her eyes and looked up over the courtyard of her new school, a critical look on her face. Her mother’s parting words from this morning still rang through her skull, though in light of her current situation, they took on a mocking tone.

_“Have fun! Try to make friends!”_

Didn’t her mother know that starting at a new high school as a sophomore basically sealed Karen’s fate as a loner in stone?

As proof that she was a social reject, she hadn’t even spoken to anyone the whole day. The teachers hardly noticed a new face among the 800 they taught a day, and every class Karen had had so far was filled with what seemed liked impenetrable social cliques. Lunch, in the slightly decaying inner yard, was a solitary affair. The only bright side was a note from Kevin that had been slipped in her brown paper sack -

_“Try not to be lame.”_

Karen smiled at it again as she ate her sandwich, which was bland and smashed from it’s adventure at the bottom of her backpack. The day was overcast, which she had heard wasn’t uncommon for New York City in the fall. She didn’t mind cloudy days, or even the lower temperature. What she missed was open sky. Here in the city, no matter where she looked, she was met with beige buildings and more metal.

She turned her musings back onto her classmates, glancing around and mentally cataloging each group. Over there, playing with a chessboard several layers high, those were the nerds. Clustered a short distance off, huddled around various copies of manga, those were the geeks. The populars were the girls wearing tight skirts and smirking on the benches under the sole tree, while the girls that tried to emulate them were sitting on the ground. Huddled in the corner were the stoners, trying desperately to keep the bored teacher walking the parameter from seeing their cloud of smoke.

Karen skipped over each of them idly, nothing different here than there had been at her last high school in Vermont. They’d moved to the city for Kevin’s treatment, because a doctor worth a damn couldn’t be found in a population of 400, but even there the same scene had played out on a smaller scale. Back there Karen had been something of an outcast too, because her peers didn’t react well to her higher than average intelligence and uncanny knack for pointing out uncomfortable flaws in others.

Perhaps that was why her mother had emphasized trying to make friends.

She looked up to the sky again, or at least, where the sky might be, miles and miles above the classroom windows that echoed with emptiness and amplified it a hundred times over. _Blank,_ Karen thought. _Blank and empty and dull and grey. Just like me._

When she lowered her gaze, it was to see a massive figure in black hurtling at her. Karen grabbed Kevin’s note and left her sandwich, throwing herself off the table she’d been sitting atop, landing hard on the concrete. For a second, all she could think was that she felt like she broke her wrist, before gradually she heard the noises of people shouting and looked up.

Above her was a boy, older than she was undoubtedly, with large, broad shoulders, and shaggy hair that fell in front of his eyes. They were brown, Karen noted, and looking down at her with something like curiosity. Karen stared back up at him, before he cocked his head and offered her a hand. Winching at how bad her wrist hurt, Karen gripped it and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.

“Sorry about that.” his voice was deep, and his hands were rough. “I’ve never seen anyone sitting at that table in four years here.”

“You weren’t paying attention?” Karen demanded, mostly annoyed at how bad her wrist was throbbing. “What the—”

“I said sorry,” he repeated, going to get the skateboard he must’ve been riding. It was beaten and worn, and Karen shot it a dirty look. “I told you, no one ever sits at the table.”

“Well I’m new, so it’s like I knew, now did I?” Karen shot back tartly and he looked at her, eyes narrowed slightly. Karen thought for second that she’d pissed him off, before he chuckled and stuck a hand out.

“Name’s Frank. Frank Castle. Sorry for trying to mow you down.”

“Karen Page,” she said, shaking his hand with a bit of reluctance.

“You hurt your wrist?” he asked, clearly noticing how she held it.

“I’ll be fine,” Karen answered, and meant it. She’d had worse when she and Kevin wrestled for the remote.

“Sure you don’t want to go to the nurse?” Frank peered at her with concern.

“What were you trying to do?” Karen asked instead, going to pick up the remnants of her lunch.

“A trick,” he answered warily, as though she was still going to be mad at their almost-collision.

“Well, you’re obviously not very good,” Karen remarked, “if you almost hit me.”

“Jesus fuck,” he breathed, before realizing that she was smirking at him. A look of surprise crossed his face before he grinned. “Yeah? Well I’d like to see you try.”

“No, I have class.” Karen dug out her schedule and map from her backpack. Frank groaned and snatched them both from her, deaf to her protests.

“They fucking handed you this? No way you’ll ever be able to figure out shit,” he snorted and Karen plucked it from his hands with a glare.

“I’m doing fine, thanks.”

“Then which direction is your next class?” he demanded, and smirked when Karen hesitated to answer. “Alright princess, don’t worry, I can tell you where to go.”

“I don’t need help!” Karen replied furiously, and he ignored her, taking her shoulders and spinning her towards a door that was beside a ring of boys playing with a hacky sack.

“Go past the mob of losers, and through the doors. Up the stairs on your left, and down the hall. When you reach the smell of rotten eggs, that’s the big science room. Go through the purple door. You’ll go past all the windows, and when you get to the classroom door with the broken handle, that’s your class.”

“How do I know you’re not just getting me lost?” Karen demanded, twisting to look over her shoulder at him. Frank’s brown eyes sparkled with mischief and he shrugged, letting her go and putting his hands up.

“Guess you’ll have to trust me.” then he was gone, off on his skateboard. Karen took a hesitant step towards the door, looking back just once to see where Frank had gone. He had been enveloped into the mass of students heading in different directions, and Karen let the wave carry her towards the door.

* * *

“Hey loser,” Kevin was in his customary wheelchair at the kitchen table when Karen stomped into the kitchen, toeing off her ratty shoes. “How was your first day?”

“Shitty,” Karen answered, going directly to the fridge. “Where’s mom then?”

“She wanted to make you cookies or something for your first day,” Kevin informed her with a snort. “Except she realized she didn’t have any eggs. She went to the bodega on the corner for them.”

“Typical.” Karen shook her head at their mother’s forgetfulness, and sat across from him with a glass of milk and two bananas. “What are you doing then?”

“Math.” he gave a lopsided smile. When he started spending more time in the hospital than the school, Karen’s parents had decided that homeschooling was their best option.

“Alright, let me see,” Karen declared, pulling the paper towards her to study it.

“Don’t you have your own homework?” he asked her and Karen waved a hand.

“I can do it later.”

* * *

Her second day was not much better than the first. She still didn’t know how to navigate the crowded hallways, and she was half convinced that the doors switched around, and stairs moved. Lunch was the only thing that offered her a bit of relief and when she found the sanctuary of her lone table, she let out a sigh of relief, pulling an apple from her bag. She nearly dropped it when someone crashed down beside her, almost knocking her off the table.

“You know, you’re starting to really get in my way, princess.”

“I’m not a princess, Frank,” Karen reminded him with a glare and he laughed, leaning back with an expression of ease.

“So did I lead you astray?” he asked casually, watching as a boy and girl engaged in an aggressive make-out session across from them.

“No,” Karen admitted, disgruntled.

“Told you I’m a good guy,” he said boastfully and before Karen could protest, added, “I could teach you all the tricks about this place.”

“Just tell me how to get to my journalism class,” Karen said wryly and Frank raised an eyebrow, extended a hand for her schedule.

“Journalism huh?”

“What about it?” Karen asked defensively, and Frank’s eyes flickered up from the schedule curiously.

“Interesting choice, that’s all. Let me guess, you’re getting caught up in the locker bay with all the freshmen?”

“Yes,” Karen admitted reluctantly.

“Yeah, that’s bound to happen. There’s a million of those little assholes. Before you get into the locker bay, open the door on your right. It’s gonna stick, but that’s only because it needs some WD40. You can walk through Miller’s classroom to the hallway behind it, he’s always at lunch then,” he explained, handing her the schedule back.

“How do you know all this?” Karen asked, folding it back up and sticking it in her pocket. Frank laughed and rolled his eyes.

“C’mon Kar, you haven’t figured that out yet?”

“Not really, no,” Karen quipped and he held a hand over his heart like he’d been wounded, standing up.

“You’ll get it eventually. You’re a smart girl, princess,” he informed her, walking backwards.

“I’m not a princess!” Karen yelled, even as he was enveloped into a crowd of boys that seemed to be a mixture of jocks and skaters. She debated throwing her apple at him, but it would’ve been a waste of a good apple so she just sighed and took a bite instead.

She used Frank’s shortcut again to history class, but this time when she entered the classroom, two boys were already sitting at the table she’d taken to sitting at alone. She paused for a second, trying to think of the pros and cons of sitting by them or risking a new spot when the blond boy looked up and spotted her.

"Oh shit, are we in your spot?" he asked, rather loudly and Karen winced.

"Uh, yeah, but I'll sit somewhere else," she assured him and he waved a hand, pulling out the chair beside him.

"Nah, come sit. We don't bite. Well, Matt doesn't. I get peckish after lunch."

"Um, okay." Karen sat down next to him slowly.

"Foggy." he stuck his hand out to her, "and this guy is Matt. He's blind, so don't think that he's ignoring you."

"Oh, hi." Karen shook Foggy's hand and then briefly rested her hand on Matt's forearm. "I'm Karen, I'm new."

"We gathered that, from your lost look," Foggy informed her, taking out two books and handing one to Matt. It appeared to be their textbook but in braille. 

"We weren't here yesterday because they messed up my schedule," Matt answered, taking out a tape recorder and setting it on the desk.

"Yeah, because they're morons," Foggy muttered.

"Do you take him everywhere?" Karen asked Matt, only half teasing. She was use to being Kevin's plus one and extra hands and feet when needed.

"He's my personal assistant," Matt agreed seriously and Foggy made a noise of anger but before he could disagree, the formidable teacher Mr. Glen entered and rapped loudly on the board, hushing them all.

"Well, you're welcome to sit with us anytime," Foggy told Karen once class wrapped up and they were packing up their bags.

"Oh, thanks, that's really nice," Karen told him honestly. They seemed sweet enough, though she was beginning to worry that the only people she'd talked to at this school were boys.

"Where are you off to next?" asked Matt.

"Journalism," Karen told them and Foggy looped his arm through hers as Matt took Foggy's shoulder.

"Let us guide you," he said gallantly, "or you'll get crushed by the freshman."

"Let me guess, Miller's classroom?" Karen let Foggy pull her into the hall. Most people gave Matt a wide berth, which made it much faster.

"How'd you know that?" Matt's head was tilted to the side inquiringly.

"I, uh, got a tip." Karen wasn't sure how to explain Frank.

"By who?" Foggy pulled the door open. "I thought we were the only ones who knew about shit like this."

"Do you know a Frank Castle?" Karen asked and Foggy stopped among the desks, jerking Karen to a stop with him.

"The Frank Castle?" he demanded.

"Are there two?" Karen was confused.

"No, there's not." Matt gently tugged them along. "He's being dramatic."

"Yeah, only because I was under the impression that anyone who talked to him got punched, or kicked, or shoved, or spit on...."

"He tripped me once. And said sorry," Matt protested as Karen looked at him in alarm.

"He seemed nice enough," she said, unsure of her first impressions.

"He is, Foggy just has a thing against him and his teammates," Matt explained, as Foggy ranted.

"Because they're a pack of jerks!"

"Wrestling team," Matt again clarified. "Best in the city and conference."

"They push around anyone who gets in their way!"

"They can manhandle people, yes."

"They get special treatment!"

"Wow, well I guess I thought he was nice enough," Karen admitted.

"He's not bad, just a bit of--"

"An arrogant jerk?" Foggy interrupted Matt and he smiled slightly.

"I was going to say gruff, but sure."

"Well, this is where I go, but thanks for walking me." Karen gestured to her hallway and let go of Foggy's arm. He looked a little dejected but gave her a wave.

"See you tomorrow in science class," he called and Karen waved over her shoulder.

"Was day two any worse than day one?" Kevin asked her, the second she dropped her backpack on the couch and went for the pantry.

"Nope," she said quickly, grabbing herself popcorn and M&Ms.

"Any better?"

"Nope." she tossed the popcorn in the microwave and turned to face him.

"So everything is just smooth sailing?" he asked her and she nodded, drumming her fingers on the kitchen counter.

"I told you, I'm going to keep my head down these next couple years."

"Oh Karen." Kevin shook his head. "You're not that kind of girl."

"I could be," Karen said idly and Kevin just looked at her, clearly amused.

* * *

"You know, you really should move off this table." the next day, Frank sat down beside her like he had yesterday. Karen looked up from her book and flipped her hair over her shoulder.

"I like it. No one else but you bothers me here," she said pointedly.

"Where are we trying to go today?" he reached for her schedule and Karen handed it over once again.

"Any tips to avoid the morning bus rush so that I can actually get to my locker?"

"Nope, sorry. Can't help you there." he handed her the schedule back.

"Why not?"

"You think I get to school on time?" Frank gave a bark of laughter.

"Oh, I did hear about that," Karen stated, leaning back and appraising Frank. He narrowed his eyes at her slowly.

"What?"

"Something about you being on the wrestling team and getting special treatment."

"Who said that?" Frank turned defensive in an instant and Karen shrugged, munching on the baby carrots that her mother had put in her lunch in a desperate bid to get her to eat healthier.

"I dunno, people."

"Well I'm not some jackass," he grumbled, scuffing his Vans on the table.

"You almost mowed me over two days ago," Karen reminded him and he made a face at her.

"I said sorry. I've been making up for it with directions!"

"You're a font of knowledge," Karen said, deadpan, and Frank's lips twitched as though he was going to smile.

"Well don't believe everything you hear about me," he ordered.

"I'll do my best." Karen patted his shoulder then went to look for the candy bar she knew Kevin had thrown in for her when her mother wasn't looking. When she found it, she broke it in half and offered it to Frank. He raised an eyebrow, taking it.

"Thanks. So you don't think I'm a giant ass?"

"Oh, I do, but for other reasons," Karen said breezily and his eyes narrowed, but a second later she added a second thought. "The footballs boys at my old school were the same way. They got to do whatever they wanted. Some of them turned into assholes. But most of them were good guys, under it all. Just spoiled.”

“Well I promise that I’m not. Most days. Depends on when you catch me.”

“So I caught you on a good day,” Karen surmised and he glanced at her like he was going to tell her something and then changed his mind.

“Yeah, sure. Where were you from before this?”

“Vermont,” Karen revealed without much emotion. She didn’t mind that most people had no idea where her hometown was, let alone had ever been there. Apparently she was flagged as a backwards hick in the big city, but she couldn’t care less. She wanted to keep her head down, get through the next couple years, and graduated so that she could get the hell on with her life.

“Why the hell did you come here?” he asked and she gazed at him levelly. She did mean what she said, that he wasn’t a jerk; at least not as big a jerk as he might be. But she wasn’t telling him about Kevin. When his question went unanswered, he swung to look at her, the thick brows knitted together as the deep brown eyes filled with curiosity.

“I didn’t want to.” she sidestepped the question quite neatly, she thought, so Frank stood and stretched. She couldn’t help that her eyes slid to the tiny strip of skin that showed as his Led Zeppelin tee-shirt rose up. She glanced away hastily, but he clearly saw. Grinning, he made a show of flexing his arms under the guise of stretching those too.

“Well I’m glad you’re here, Karen.” with a wink, he left. Karen watched him go, feeling a bit off balance.

* * *

“Karen!” Foggy waved her into her seat in science class with a bright smile. Matt sat next to him, smiling faintly.

“Hi.” she sat down next to them, opening up her backpack so she could get out a notebook and pencil.

“So we heard from Claire that you eat lunch with Frank Castle.” Foggy sure didn’t waste any time with the preamble.

“Uh, not really,” she tried to explain. “More like, I eat by myself and he annoys me until he gets bored and then he goes somewhere else. Who’s Claire, by the way?”

“Yeah Matt, who is Claire?” Foggy turned to face his friend and Matt’s grin grew a bit bigger.

“Oh, is that what it is?” Karen fell into teasing Matt with Foggy; she couldn’t help it. They both reminded her of Kevin in a way. It seemed normal with them.

“She’s just a friend!”

“Yeah, and I’m just taking pre calculus because it’s fun.”

* * *

Over the next couple weeks, Karen found herself in a rhythm despite herself. She spent her time with Matt and Foggy mostly, as Foggy was determined to make her one of their gang. She suspected his secondary motive for it, but she only saw him and Matt as strictly friends. She saw her baby brother in them and that wasn’t the most appealing from a romantic perspective.

Frank was an entirely different story. Sometimes during lunch he came over to annoy her, harassing her with questions and jokes that came so fast she could hardly keep up. But it was in the best sort of way and more often than not she left their conversations with a smile on her face. She saw him occasionally in the hallways once she started looking for him despite herself. He always seemed to be holding court with half a dozen guys around him, laughing loudly. A couple times he spotted her and grinned, raising a few fingers in greeting. Karen always pretended she didn’t see.

“Are you going to the game tonight?” Foggy demanded one Friday. Karen looked up from the lit homework she was trying to finish up before the next period.

“Why would I?” she resumed her work.

“It’s homecoming.”

“So?”

“Homecoming!”

“I’m already home, I don’t need to come back.”

“Karen!” he gave her an exasperated look. “It’s the biggest game of the season. And the biggest party of the season.”

“And I care why?” she gave him another deadpan look.

“You’re impossible.” Foggy threw his pencil down in distress.

“It’s actually pretty fun,” Matt promised quietly. “There’s the game and then one of the upperclassmen usually throws a pretty decent party afterwards. Unless you don’t, you know, party.”

“I just better be home,” Karen stated, trying to avoid having to explain her reluctance at leaving Kevin alone for an evening while she went to the game.

“You never do things with us on the weekend,” Foggy accused and Karen hid a smile. “C’mon Karen, Matt’s going. Claire’s going. Don’t make me third wheel.”

“Oh, is that how it is?” Karen looked at him skeptically.

“Yeah, we could all go!” Foggy said brightly. “Matt, Claire, me, you, a double date!”

“Um.” Karen stiffened, unable to help herself. She liked Foggy, strictly as a friend, but she wasn’t sure how to communicate that without hurting feelings. “Yeah, I mean, I’ll come but I need to bring someone.”

“Who?” Foggy looked at her with a frown.

* * *

“Alright, here’s the deal.” Karen dropped her bag down in front of Kevin, who was doing his own homework. He glanced up, unbothered. “We’re going out.”

“Does mom know?” he asked conversationally, like this was a normal thing for Karen to announce on a Wednesday afternoon.

“I’ll explain later,” Karen stated. “But right now you and I need to figure out how we’re getting you to my school’s stadium.”

“Ooh, why?” Kevin looked intrigued and Karen wavered between calling the whole thing off and keeping it going. In the end, she gave into Kevin’s excited insistence that they’d be able to get to the stadium with only a few minor setbacks with public transport.

Friday afternoon arrived a bit too quickly for her liking. She had just told Matt and Foggy that she was bringing a fifth group member. She didn’t want to give them a chance to ditch her and Kevin until they absolutely had to. She let Kevin wear the sweatshirt that had her school colors and emblem on it, and she dressed herself warmly in jeans and a jacket. Then they headed for the stadium.

“I didn’t realize it would be this big.” Karen glanced up at the mammoth structure as they waited in line for tickets. Kevin was looking around with wide eyes, trying to take it all in.

“Football is a big deal.”

“Well it shouldn’t be,” Karen grumbled, pushing his wheelchair forward over the rough concrete.

“Dad likes it.”

“Dad likes anything that provides him with an excuse to sit on the couch and drink,” Karen muttered hotly, but under her breath and quietly enough that Kevin couldn’t hear her.

“Where are we meeting them?” Kevin asked her as they walked through the gates.

“Under section C.” Karen squinted at the lettering on the backside of the stands, then started navigating through the crowd with her brother in front of her.

“Karen! Karen!” she saw Foggy’s frantic waving first, then made out Matt’s tall frame and Claire tucked in next to him.

“Hi guys.” Karen pushed Kevin up to them, watching their faces carefully for any sign of judgement. All she got was surprise from Foggy and polite bafflement from Claire. “This is my brother, Kevin.”

“Hi,” Foggy said, just a beat too quickly.

“You guys must be the Foggy and Matt I hear so much about,” Kevin said eagerly.

“I would shake your hand, but….” Matt gave his cane a rattle.

“Oh, no worries. I’m not exactly at the best angle.” despite this, Kevin extended his hand towards Foggy who started forward as though prodded.

“Uh, Matt, Kevin is a bit younger than Karen, but they look a lot alike - kinda freaky, actually, and he’s in a, uh, wheelchair and—“ Foggy broke off suddenly, looking between Karen and Kevin with trepidation. “Wait, is this rude? I’m sorry.”

“No man, it’s cool. Do you always describe things for him?” Kevin asked curiously.

“He does, but usually with more tact,” Matt said with humor and Karen relaxed slightly. So it wasn’t going that badly. “This is my girlfriend, Claire.”

“Nice to meet you.” Claire took Kevin’s hand with a genuine smile and shook it. Karen grinned to see her brother flush at a pretty girl’s smile.

“Well, should we take our seats?” Foggy suggested, still a bit thrown off guard.

“Follow me guys,” Kevin insisted confidently. “I can get us front row, guaranteed.”

The game was actually decent fun, she would admit. Between Kevin and Foggy’s commentary for Matt’s benefit and the ridiculous cheers that they were forced to participate in, Karen relaxed. Kevin seemed to be genuinely enjoying it and talked so fast that even she lost track of what he was saying. A couple times she thought she heard Frank’s loud voice behind her but she didn’t look. She didn’t quite want to know what he’d say about Kevin.

“So are we going to the party after this?” Foggy demanded as the forth quarter wound down, their team in the lead.

“We better get home.” Karen patted Kevin’s shoulder apologetically.

“What? No!” he protested instantly.

“How are we going to get you there?” Karen asked him quietly.

“We can figure something out,” Matt insisted quickly. “It’s not that far.”

“Where is it?” Karen bit her lip. Kevin was having so much fun and he hardly ever got out for anything other than doctor and therapy appointments.

“Only like six blocks away,” promised Claire.

“I don’t know.” Karen chewed her lip, unsure. “Are you sure you’re not too tired?”

“We’ll only be there for like an hour, tops,” Matt told her. “We try to leave before it gets too rowdy and the cops bust it up.”

“An hour,” Karen relented and Kevin’s grin was so wide it threatened to crack his face in two.

It ended taking them a little bit longer to get to the party with both Kevin and Matt to navigate, so by the time they showed up, it seemed to be in full swing. Karen saw instantly what their first problem was going to be - there were stairs leading up to the ajar front door. She looked back at Kevin, who seemed to realize the same thing. He looked up at her, a pleading look in his eyes. He didn’t want to turn around and go home, it was clear to see.

“We could bring stuff out,” Foggy suggested tentatively and Karen shook her head. It was getting chilly with the sun down now and it was foolish to be drinking in the front yard.

“I have a better idea.” a plan was slowly dawning on her and she wasn’t quite sure if it was going to work, but she had to try. “Stay here.”

“Karen, what are you—?” Foggy called after her but she was already going up the front steps and through the front door. The party was raging inside, someone doing a keg stand in the living room, plastic cups littering the floor, several giggling girls loitering on the stairs, watching boys. Karen scanned them all and upon not seeing what she wanted, moved on.

The person she wanted was in the kitchen, standing on the counter with a massive knife and a bottle of champagne, loudly and drunkenly instructing everyone to watch his trick. Karen pushed her way to the front and reached up to stop him from bring the knife down on the neck of the bottle, the crowd groaning behind her. Frank looked down at her in bewilderment before something flashed across his face and he let the knife clatter down.

“I need your help.” Karen didn’t waste any time. “And grab some of your buddies. Strong ones.”

“What’s going on? Are you okay?” his eyes swept her face with concern, even in his drunken state.

“Just fine.” she patted his cheek. “Now c’mon.”

The reactions when she emerged from the house with Frank Castle and several other wrestler and football players were varied. Claire remained incredibly impassive, picking at her cuticles like this was any other standard Friday night for her. Matt clearly perked up, sensing that something had happened. Kevin just looked thrilled that there was a chance he was going to get into the party. And Foggy’s face could only be described as thunderous.

“What do you need?” Frank glanced back at her.

“This is my brother, Kevin.” she gestured to him. “We’d like to go to the party, but….”

“Sure, sure.” unfazed, Frank inspected Kevin’s wheelchair and the stairs. “He’ll fit. Bill, Curt, you guys each grab a wheel. I’ll get the back.”

“Got it coach.” the boys moved into position and with some grunting and a few mumbled curses, eventually lifted Kevin and his chair up the three short stairs and onto the landing.

“Can you get in from there?” Frank asked and Kevin lined up his wheelchair.

“Yeah, I should!”

“Alright, get on in there.” Frank slapped his shoulder. “There’s a guy in there named PJ manning the keg. Tell him I sent you, get a cup on me.”

“One cup!” Karen yelled, as Kevin wheeled inside.

“Aw, let him live.” Claire threw her a grin and led Matt and Foggy inside. Karen suspected that Foggy had a few things he wanted to say to her, but didn’t on the account of Claire’s vise-like grip on his wrist. Frank’s friends followed them, until it was just Karen and Frank on the porch.

“Thank you,” she said honestly, and meant it.

“He seems like a nice kid. Does he go to our school?” Frank asked and Karen shook her head.

“Homeschool. It’s easier with the doctors and stuff to just do it that way.”

“Oh, okay.” Frank nodded, looking vaguely uncomfortable and Karen smiled sadly. Just like she figured.

“Well, sorry to bother you. You can go back to doing the knife and bottle thing.”

“That?” Frank looked rather surprised. “No, it’s a shit idea. Last time I did it, I about sliced the tip of my finger off.”

“Really?” Karen questioned and he held up the finger as proof. Karen recoiled from the knotted scar on it.

“Gross, right?”

“Okay, I promise to spend the rest of the party keeping an eye out from you and knives, got it.”

“You’re not going to drink?” he glanced at her, clearly surprised.

“No, I better keep an eye on my brother and the others,” she decided. “That’s easier.”

“I could get you something,” he offered and Karen grinned despite herself.

“No, thank you, but that’s sweet.”

“Well, I’ll be around if you need me,” he told her and Karen nodded, wrapping her arms around herself as the wind blew down the street. Unbidden, like he didn’t even realize he was doing it, Frank reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. She looked at him, expectant of more but Frank gave her a queer look and disappeared inside quickly.

She didn’t end up drinking, since Foggy had managed to find three or four shots of whiskey during her conversation with Frank and Kevin was valiantly trying to struggle through his cup of beer. Karen minded all of them, including Matt and Claire who were canoodling in a corner. Occasionally though she’d hear Frank’s loud laugh from the back of the house and smiled to herself.

* * *

“So that’s your big secret then.” Matt didn’t look up from the book he was reading in braille, but Karen knew that his entire focus was on her.

“Not a secret,” she corrected, frowning over a math problem. “Just not something I share with every Tom, Dick, and Harry.”

“Well, honored to be trusted then.” Matt was quiet for a minute. “You know, Foggy really thought you were bringing a boyfriend.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Karen muttered, trying to remember what she’d learned in algebra last year.

"Yeah, but you didn't tell any of us about your brother and you've been here for almost two months."

"And I wouldn't have told you," she said bluntly, "except Foggy was about to make it into the world's most awkward double date and I didn't want that."

"Oh." Matt was silent and Karen went back to work, worried that this was going to cause a problem. She liked Foggy. He was goofy and made her laugh and he was a really good friend. And she liked Matt, quiet and steady but always good for a sly comment and shared joke. Even Claire was growing on her, with her tendency to always have whatever Karen might need at any given moment in her bag.

"I just don't like him like that," she admitted quietly and Matt didn't respond for a moment, letting the quiet whisper of his fingers on the paper fill the silence.

"He knows, he just hopes."

"I won't change my mind."

"Well, I know that. I don't think there's a force in the world that can make you change your mind, Karen Page."

"Do you think it'll cause problems?" despite herself, Karen turned to look at Matt for reassurance.

"No." he was looking at her, or actually just over her shoulder honestly. "He knows. He understands. He just.... Wishes."

"Well, he can wish all he want." she bent back over the homework. Matt made a noise, a cross between a snort and a cough, and she smiled.

"You two will never believe this." Foggy interrupted their tranquil study session by dropping a milk carton and three cookies on the table.

"Oh, did someone make out with someone else?" Matt mocked but Foggy ignored him.

"Russo is suspended."

“Who?" Karen wasn't really paying attention to anything but homework, but Foggy did seem even more keyed up than usual. She even managed to snag a cookie for herself and Matt since he was agitated and pacing.

"Billy Russo. He's another wrestler. Apparently they caught him giving swirlies to some freshman."

"Swirlies?" Karen raised an eyebrow and broke off a piece of cookie. "What are we, a cartoon high school?"

"This is what I mean about them getting special treatment!" Foggy's rant could not be swayed. "He'll be suspended for a couple days, give some bullshit apology and jump through a couple hoops and bam - back at school, back into wrestling, and nothing ever changes. What about that poor freshman?"

"Why don't you lobby to the school that things be changed then?" Karen suggested, opening the milk cartoon and taking a swig. She passed it to Matt after tapping his knee.

"Letters don't do anything Karen!"

"Letters do a lot. Letters start revolutions," Karen corrected him and Foggy huffed, turning back to them. Whatever he was going to say died as he realized he had only one cookie and a quarter of milk left for himself. Scowling, he snatched them both back.

* * *

"Hey there princess." Frank crashed onto the table next to Karen. She mostly ignored him, engrossed in her book.

"Frank."

"What you got?" he inspected the cover of the book. "Ooh, To Kill a Mockingbird. That's a good one."

"You've read it?" she couldn't help but look at him in disbelief.

"Yeah?" he didn't seem to hear the doubt in her voice; he was distracted at the scuff marks in his shoes. "Fuck, Boo Radley is my man. Protect kids at all costs, right? Even when they're being dicks?" something in his voice sounded wistful.

"Not the sort of book I picked out for you." she wanted to tell him that it was her favorite.

"What would you pick out for me?" he leaned towards her, his brown eyes serious. Her breath caught in her throat for half a second before she answered.

"Hatchet."

"Nah." he leaned away, grinning, and she remembered how to breathe. "I'm a New York City kid, remember?"

"Mhmm." Karen opened her book back up but then closed it slowly, glancing at Frank. "Hey, do you know a Billy Russo?"

"Bill?" the way Frank said it, with such easy and familiarity, made Karen sure that they were close.

"Foggy said he got suspended for bullying kids." Karen pretended to be engrossed in her book but peeked at Frank sideways. He'd gone rigid, face frozen in an expressionless mask. Then he got up and walked away from the table, not saying a word to her again. Karen watched him go, then idly picked up the second half of her granola bar.

* * *

"Karen! Kar!" Frank's yelling made her pause. She leaned out of the line to her bus, trying to figure out where he was coming from. He was standing on the other sidewalk, waving.

"What?" she shouted back and he gestured for her to join him. She pointed to the bus and he waved a hand, pointing to himself before flashing a set of keys.

"C'mon!"

"Dear god." shaking her head, she got out of line and crossed the street. "What, Frank?"

"I wanted to talk to you," he admitted, without really looking at her.

"About?" she crossed her arms. "I'm going to miss my bus."

"I'll drive you." he rolled his eyes and started walking. She glanced back at the bus and then sighed, following him.

"What do you want to talk about then?" she drew her coat around her. It was getting chilly now and the wind would gallop down the streets, chilling her to the bone.

"What you said today," he said evasively, kicking a rock down the sidewalk.

"I said lots of things today," she reminded him, "to you, to my teachers, I even told my mom that I didn't want waffles microwaved for my breakfast."

"To me, about Bill." he gave her an exasperated look.

"I just asked if you knew him."

"Bullshit. You wanted to ask me if I was friends with him, since you know he's on the wrestling team. And you wanted to know if I was bullying that kid with him."

"Mhmm." she didn't want to say much else, since she was a bit unnerved that Frank had managed to hit the nail directly on the head. She hadn't even thought through her motivations in asking him that far, but it was true. She did want to know if this was what Frank did in his free time, besides annoying her in an oddly endearing way and helping her brother experience a high school party for the first time.

"Well I am friends with him." he was defensive but Karen simply kept her head down, walking along calmly. "But I wasn't there when he did that shit. If I had, I would've stopped him. Honestly."

"You would?" she looked up in surprise. She liked Frank, rather abstractly, but he didn't seem like the sort to break up a mob mentality.

"Yeah." he looked down at her, surprised at her surprise. "I mean, it's not right. We were freshman once. I mean, I don't think I was ever as small as those freshman, but that's not the point. He shouldn't have done it. He fucks around sometimes and takes things too far. I try to tell him that."

"Oh." she went back to pretending the sidewalk was very interesting. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah, not a lot of people do. This is me." he gestured to an older car, with a few small dents in the front and the back door.

"Oh, thanks." Karen went around to the passenger door and slid in, throwing her backpack in the back seat and buckling up. "Pretty nice to have your own car."

"Yeah, my parents wanted me to be able to get myself around," he revealed and Karen glanced around. Clean, for a guy's car. An older model, nothing special. But it didn't seem like there was anything personal in it at all.

"They must really trust you," she observed and he gave a little snort.

"Something."

"What?"

"Nothing." he put the car in reverse, joining the snaking line of people trying to get out of the vicinity of the high school. "Which way is home?"

"Uh...." Karen had never driven it, on account of her not having a car and always taking the bus. "Left?"

"You're going to get me lost," he accused, glancing at her, and she raised a helpless hand.

"You're the one who made me miss my bus!"

"Fine." he turned right. "Well go to the diner first, and I can figure out how to get you home from there. I'm starving anyways."

"Don't you have wrestling practice?" she asked curiously and he looked at her quickly, like he was gauging if he should tell her the truth or not.

"No. Start next week."

"Oh, okay." she sat back and watched as Frank eased them through traffic, utterly confident. After a second he reached and turned the radio onto some rock station. She was familiar with it through her brother and nodded along to the songs.

“You like this stuff?" he asked her, almost surprised.

"Yeah." she shrugged. "Kevin listens to it. I don't hate it."

"Huh." Frank sat back. "Your brother then."

"What about him?" now it was Karen's turn to be defensive.

"He seems like a good kid." Frank changed the station. More rock. This one Karen didn't know.

"You don't have to pity him, if that's what you're trying to say."

"The only reason I pity him is cause he must have to put up with you more than me."

"You made me miss my bus!" Karen reminded him again hotly and Frank chuckled as he turned down a quieter side street.

"Yeah, I told you I wanted to talk. I wanted to uh," he hesitated, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. "To make sure you knew I'm not a bad guy."

"I know you're not a bad guy," she stated, a bit confused. Why would he even care if she did?

"Well I don't know what that Foggy kid tells you."

"Oh." she wondered if Frank knew that Foggy didn't like him. "He doesn't tell me much, honestly. That was all."

"Yeah, well, I don't know what you two talk about." Frank sounded cranky, all of the sudden. "He's like what, your boyfriend?"

"No," Karen said, a beat too quickly. Frank glanced at her and nearly jumped the curb. "No. Not at all. I mean, I think he'd like that - for sure - but no. Nope. No. Not happening. Never happening. Nope, nope, nope. No."

"Jeez." for some reason, he was smiling. "I get it."

"Well, maybe someone should tell him," Karen said tartly and that brought out a real, true smile from Frank. After a second, he reached and turned the radio up, still smiling, mouthing the words to the song.

* * *

"And you're going where?" Kevin gave her a skeptical look.

"Hank's Diner." Karen threw a sweatshirt on and went to see if she'd taken her graphing calculator out of her backpack. She was going to need it to get her math homework done sometime this century.

"With who?"

"Frank."

"The guy from the party?" Kevin brightened considerably. "Why are you going to a diner with him? Is it a date?"

"No." she found her calculator buried in blankets at the end of her bed and lobbed it in the general direction of her backpack. "We study together. We were going after school but now he wrestles, so we do Sunday morning." the change had been necessary, since she'd become obsessed with the milkshakes at Hank's and Frank had actually started to study with her chiding him. Plus, it was nice for the two of them. Karen got a bit of peace and quiet from Matt and Foggy, Frank seemed to like the excuse to not go to church with his parents . Or so he told her.

"Can I come?" Kevin's voice was hopeful and Karen couldn't help but cringe slightly.

"I don't know how to get you there," she admitted without looking at him and heard him sigh.

"Okay." his wheelchair backed out of the room.

"Wait," she called, the guilt making her heart feel like it was weighted down and anchored in her feet. "Let me call Frank and see if we can figure it out." there was no response from Kevin, but she still went to get the phone.

"Hello?" the way Frank answered the phone, so languidly he was nearly catatonic, always made her smile.

"It's Karen."

"Are you already at the diner?" bewilderment slipped into his tone. She heard some crashing behind him. "I thought we said 10!"

"We did. I'm still at home," she told him and then it was quiet on his end.

"Then why--"

"Am I calling?" she guessed. "Well, Kevin got bummed that I was going. And he made me feel really shitty about it, because I have no way of getting him there, because I don't know what buses he can take and I can't drive my mom's car, and--"

"Kar," he cut her off, "why don't I just come to your house?"

"What?" the thought hadn't even crossed her mind. "But.... Hank's."

"Look, Hank's is on the way. I'll swing by, pick me and Kevin up a hearty breakfast, get a milkshake and curly fries for you, and bring it all over."

"You'd do that?" Karen sat down on her bed, flabbergasted. The effort of driving to Hank's she understood. It was well worth it. But coming all the way over here?

"Sure. Just tell me how your brother likes his eggs."

"Uh, sunny side up," she said automatically and Frank clicked his tongue.

"My man. You're helping me study for my history test right?"

"I've already made flashcards." she glanced at them, sitting on her desk.

"Sweet. I'll be there in a bit."

Karen hung up on him and set the phone down, blinking away her confusion. She got up and wandered over to Kevin's room, pushing the door open with enough force to move the mountain of laundry he let accumulate behind it. He was sitting at his desk, his back to her, leaning over his sketchpad. Karen leaned against the doorway, waiting for him. He clearly was trying to seem brooding and angry, but she knew her brother. He never lasted. He'd crack, eventually. And it only took 30 seconds before he did.

"Have fun at your breakfast."

"Oh, don't complain. Frank's bringing it here," she told him and there for a beat before he turned to look at her, his face lit up with happiness.

"Really?"

"Yeah." she looked around the floor critically. "So you better clean up."

It only took him a few minutes to grab the bundle of clothes and throw them haphazardly towards the washer. Karen cleaned up the kitchen and living room, though there truly wasn't much to be done. It wasn't like either of their parents were around to make much of a mess. They were just each finishing odds and ends - Karen making her bed while Kevin wiped the toothpaste off the bathroom sink - when the doorbell rang.

"I got it!" Kevin raced for the door. Karen smiled, though she didn't understand why her stomach was suddenly flipping. "Hey, Frank!"

"Hey Kev." Frank walked in, arms filled with two large bags of what looked like delicious Hank's. Karen's mouth watered at the smell of greasy bacon and hash-browns. "Hope you're hungry."

"How much do I owe you?" Karen called from the kitchen, going to the old coffee tin where her dad stuffed cash.

"You're not paying me." Frank offloaded it onto the table and Kevin eagerly wheeled up.

"I am too." Karen thrust a 20 at him. "Is this enough?"

"I'm not taking it," Frank informed her, looking at her with a smile.

"Frank." she tried to press the bill into his hands and he laughed, gently holding her at arm's length to fend it off.

"Eat up or your milkshake is gonna go warm."

"Jesus." she put the bill back in the jar and grabbed the cup.

They didn't get much homework done, but mostly because Frank and Kevin were loudly and passionately arguing about music. Karen listened, grinning, occasionally dropping her head to jot down a few math problems or chemical properties. After about an hour, when all the food was gone and they'd begun talking about upcoming concerts, Karen nudged Frank's arm.

"Yeah?" he glanced at her, almost like he'd forgotten she was there.

"Flashcards," she told him and he groaned.

"Fuck me, I forgot."

"You still want to study?" she offered and he glanced at Kevin, who was clearly dejected but shrugged it off.

"Yeah, no, that's why you're here. Besides, I'll go get that CD for you." he scooted past them and out of the kitchen, squeezing through the narrow kitchen door.

"What a kid," Frank said fondly and Karen's heart skipped a beat when he patted her knee. "Alright then, where's those flashcards?"

"Right here." she nearly spilled them over the floor in her haste to get them out, flustered for seemingly no reason at all. "Uh, do you want to start with the revolution or the civil war?"

"Neither, let's do presidents and branches over government."

"Did you already study the other stuff?"

"...No."

* * *

"Hey, nice job." Foggy looked down at her test with clear perplexity, "I thought that test was super hard, how did you get an A?" 

"Studied hard, I guess." she shoved the chemistry test in her bag. She had indeed studied hard, but only because for every flashcard she did, Frank had to do one as well. The effort to improve his grades had the unexpected benefit of raising her own at the same time. But she knew better than to tell Foggy that.

"Maybe we should have a study group with you," Matt joked and Karen gave him a light punch to his shoulder.

"Like you two focus long enough to actually study."

"Yeah, we should study together," Foggy said brightly and Karen tried not to groan aloud. "What about Thursday night? The retest is on Friday and I, uh, could use it."

"How bad did you do?" Karen tried to snatch the paper but Foggy ripped it away.

"I'd just like to retest is all!"

"Well, I can't make Thursday," Karen admitted and both Matt and Foggy turned to her with matching confused looks.

"Why? What are you doing?" Matt didn't sound accusing, but Foggy's face certainly was.

"I'm going to the wrestling match," she admitted.

"What?" Foggy looked fit to explode.

"I have to cover it for my journalism class," she told them quickly and that diffused Foggy some. It was also a lie; Frank had asked her if she was going to attend by way of inviting Kevin and then her as an afterthought. It was only after she'd agreed that they'd go that she'd volunteered to write about the event for the school paper in her class.

"That sucks," Matt remarked and she gave a little shrug.

"You guys could come if you wanted," she suggested, knowing full well Foggy's answer. To her surprise and somewhat horror, Foggy squared his shoulders.

"Yeah, we should go. Keep you company."

"Would it be fun for you?" Karen's last desperate bid was to ask Matt a somewhat annoying question; to his credit, he shrugged it off with a smile.

"I'm sure Foggy's commentary will be thrilling."

"Okay." she slung her back onto her shoulder and held the door open for them. "I can't wait."

* * *

"We are going to be late." Kevin tried to spur her on faster, but Karen was still searching through her bag, trying to find a pen. "Kar, Jesus Christ!"

"Calm down. I got it." triumphantly, she raised a pencil up high. "Besides, Frank's like, a heavyweight. He won't wrestle until the end."

"And how do you know that?" Kevin smirked and Karen shot him a withering look.

"I have to do a report on this for the paper. Of course I memorized the lineup."

"Sure." Kevin breezed past her, into the school.

They took a short detour for Karen to grab her press credentials, which allowed her to go down onto the gym floor next to the mats, then went to go see if Foggy and Matt were waiting at the concession stand like they said they'd be. Karen had a moment of hope when she didn't see them but then the crowd shifted to make way for Kevin's chair and they were there. She tried not to groan.

"Karen!" Foggy waved an arm, just a hair past desperate. "Kar!"

"Hey guys." she followed Kevin over, who was looking around with curiosity.

"Hi Kevin," Matt greeted him with a smile and Kevin's grin was so wide it nearly split his face in two.

"Hey man."

"We should go get settled." Karen glanced towards the gym, where music was already playing. "C'mon, the wheelchair spot is over here."

They parked Kevin in the little area designated for wheelchair users; there was only one other man there who looked like a grandpa and didn't seem to be able to hear them. Kevin took no notice of this, animatedly talking with Matt and Foggy. Karen fiddled with her camera, waiting for him to get settled, then stood and brushed off her jeans.

"Where are you going?" Foggy questioned, looking up at her.

"I have a press pass." she wiggled it. "I have to go sit down by the mats, to take pictures and write stuff down."

"Oh." Foggy deflated some.

"Have fun," Matt said cheerfully and she patted his shoulder.

She was acutely aware that she was being watched as she made her way across the gym and towards the line of chairs set up along one edge of the mat. It made her shiver a little bit. It was Frank, it had to be him. Mostly because no one else here knew her name.

She sat down cross legged on the wooden floor, near the other kid holding a camera. He glanced at her, suspicious at first then relaxing when he saw her pass. She had seen him around and knew his face, vaguely.

"You here for the paper?" he asked and she nodded. He stuck his hand out. "I'm Ben. I do this stuff for the yearbook."

"Nice to meet you." she was relieved there was someone else there to show her the ropes.

"First time?" he asked, glancing out of the corner of his eye as she tried to balance a notepad on her knee and get the right settings on the camera.

"Uh, at wrestling," she said, hoping he wouldn't pick up on her play on words. He grinned and turned back.

"Well, you're in for a show then."

It was actually a godsend, having Ben down next to her. He gave her advice and tips on when to jot down notes and when to raise the camera to get a good shot. Plus, it was a good distraction from the fact that whenever her eyes lifted off the mat, they seemed to seek out Frank against her will.

It wasn't that he was doing anything remarkable yet. He had sweats and a hoodie on and his deep brown eyes were watching his fellow team members wrestle with an attention she had never seen him devote to anything. He yelled and cheered, leaping out of his seat when one of the lighter weights got a pin. She had no idea if he was looking at her. If he did, she wanted to make sure he didn't see her watching him.

She realized her palms were sweating as they got closer to Frank's weight. She rubbed them on her jeans, gripping her pencil tightly. Ben was chatting about the team's performance the last couple years, oblivious to her. Then the sound system crackled to life and boomed out that it was Frank's turn to wrestle. Karen's breath caught in her throat as he stood, shedding his sweats.

She'd been staring at nearly naked men for the better part of an hour at this point. She had a brother. She wasn't one to blush. But as he strode to the middle of the mat to shake his opponent's hand, she had to duck her head to steady her breathing, pretending the camera needed inspection.

She chided herself for acting like a dumb kid. This was just Frank and clearly he had no qualms about anything. So she set her chin, raised her eyes, and took a deep breath. Frank was getting ready, all his attention on the kid in front of him. She put the tip of her pen to the paper and didn't notice that it shook, slightly.

"C'mon Frank!" she found herself yelling, when the aggression of the duel picked up. Remembering herself, she raised the camera to snap a few times before popping back out, hating that her vision was being impeded. "Go, go, go!"

"You know him?" Ben glanced at her between the periods. She didn't realize she was sweating, so she primly sat back down and acted like she was rereading her notes.

"Yeah, I guess."

"How?"

"Why?" Karen looked up at him warily and Ben shrugged.

"Dunno. Not many people seem to know him."

"Really?" that surprised her. From what she'd seen of Frank, he'd always been surrounded by friends, except for when he came to talk to her.

"You must be special." Ben gave her a knowing, sidelong look and Karen turned away from him as the next period began.

"Trust me, I'm not."

Frank ended up pinning his kid early in the third period. Karen was on her feet, screaming, before she even realized what was happening. Ben was smirking when she contained herself, sitting down primly.

Frank was one of the last weight classes, and his pin gave the team the points needed to win. The stands exploded into cheers when the match was done and they'd won, and Karen missed Frank being mobbed by his teammates. The crowd began to stream up and she said her goodbye to Ben, being buffeted and jostled all the way back to her brother and friends.

"Hey!" Kevin's cheeks were pink and his voice hoarse, light shining in his eyes. Karen gave his hair an affectionate tussle, grinning back.

"Have fun?"

"Frank's pin was so badass!"

"I mean, it wasn't that - ow!" Foggy grumbled and shot Matt a dirty look, having been whacked in the shins with the cane.

"Yeah, it kinda was." Karen tactfully ignored them, instead focusing her attention on Kevin.

"Can we go get pizza?" Kevin begged. "The place is like two blocks away!"

"Uh," Karen hummed. She knew the place, since half the upperclassmen left during lunch to get it. It was close and would be easy enough for Kevin and his chair. "Yeah, we can. But I have to go interview the coach."

"We can take him. Meet us there," Matt said confidently and Karen nodded, fixing her brother with a stern look. She didn't need to say anything; Kevin gave her thumbs up.

"Order me two slices of veggie," she commanded. "And--"

"No olives, I know!" Kevin was already wheeling away. "I know!"

Grinning, Karen headed back into the gym. Most of the crowd was thinning out now. The coach was talking to what looked like a real sports reporter so Karen decided to hang off to the side and listen, taking notes on not just the answers the coach gave but the questions the reporter was asking. But then movement caught her eye - Frank was running down the gym steps just a bit too fast to be normal, then barely caught the rail at the end and bodily flung himself around it, disappearing with a slam through a side door.

Karen hesitated for a moment then followed him.

He was in the alley behind the gym, breathing heavily. His breath created great white billowing smoke, now that the evenings were cold. Karen, clad in only a sweatshirt, shivered slightly. Frank's back was turned to her and he had his sweats back on, but she could still picture how he'd looked in his singlet, the muscles rippling beneath his skin.

"Frank," she said softly, when he lifted his head up to look at the sky. He spun around and she automatically took a step back when she realized how angry he seemed.

"Fuck, Karen!" he exhaled, hard. "You're like a fucking ghost."

"I just followed you out," she explained, stopping herself from saying more. She followed him out because he seemed upset. Because she wanted to congratulate him. Because she was drawn to him, always.

"I'm fine," he told her, in a voice that cracked. She walked towards him, careful, and when he didn't shy away, stopped before him. Close enough to touch, though she didn't.

"What's wrong?" she asked softly and he looked down at her, his brown eyes searching her face. Her throat was suddenly tight; it was the same look of utter focus and dedication that he showed his team.

"You actually give a fuck?" he asked her huskily, his eyes on her lips. She swallowed, trying to speak.

"Of course I do."

"My parents don't give a fuck about me." he spoke the first sentence as though with great pain and then all of the sudden it was rushing out of him, like he couldn't stop it. "I'm the best fucking wrestler on this team. The best in the school, the best in the state if I can keep it up. And they aren't fucking here. They're never fucking here. They don't give a shit, so long as I'm not in jail or dead. I could fuck everything up and it wouldn't matter! They don't care! No one bothers to care, no one bothers to show the fuck up!"

"I did," she reminded him, before she could stop herself. Something flickered in Frank's eyes and he loomed over her.

"Yeah, you did." he sounded like he was choking back a cry or laugh, she couldn't tell. She stared up at him, mesmerized.

Two hands slid up her neck, warm and rough. Frank was holding her, the warmth of him radiating into her. She lost the ability to think, to breathe, to comprehend anything.

He kissed her, a bit rough, but she didn't mind in the slightest. Her knees went weak and it was Frank holding her up, kissing her and keeping her close. She flung her arms around his neck, the only thought about how right this felt.

Then all the sudden she remembered that this was Frank - **Frank** \- and everything came crashing back to reality. They both pulled back, Karen nearly stumbling into the brick wall, still on uncertain ground. Frank's hand caught her wrist to keep her steady and they both stared at each other for a long moment, the silence more oppressive than the darkness creeping in.

"Why did you do that?" she demanded, heart pounding.

Frank tilted his head, then walked away and left her alone, head spinning and heart following somewhere after him.

* * *

"You're a thousand miles away." Matt poked her gently in the side.

"Am not." Karen jolted upright and then gave him a dirty look, knowing by his smirk that he knew how annoyed she was.

"Usually by now you've asked twenty questions, offered to fight someone at least twice, and tried to plot a coup or two. But today, nothing. So what's wrong?"

"Nothing," she sighed, tossing her pencil down and winding her hands up into her hair to pull it back. The action reminded her of Frank and cheeks flaming, she let it back down. She and Matt were studying together, with Claire, and without Foggy. He was meeting with some chess club friends.

"Ooh, she's blushing," Claire declared, for Matt's benefit. Karen glared at her. Just because Claire was the only girl who talked to her didn't mean that she wouldn't fight her, Matt's love be damned.

"What did you do this weekend?" Matt demanded.

"Nothing," Karen said honestly. And she wasn't lying - she had spent the whole weekend wandering aimlessly around the house, trying to understand what had happened. On Sunday, she'd waited for Frank to call and tell her if they were meeting at the diner or coming to her place, but he never did. Which had put her in a foul mood. She was dreading lunch next, since it meant she might see him.

"Sure." Claire gave her a knowing smile and Karen couldn't help but look down, slamming her book shut when the bell rang. She headed for the courtyard, uncaring that most people chose to eat inside now that the weather had turned so cold. She had a coat and mittens and she preferred the silence anyways.

She sat down on the table, taking a bite of her sandwich and opening her book. As distracted as she wanted to be, there was no mistaking the way she waited for the sound of his footsteps, for his shoes to peek into her field of vision. Minutes ticked by, she finished off her sandwich, and she started to relax. He wouldn't be coming and she lost herself in the words on the page.

"Jane Eyre?" his tone was scoffing. She raised her eyes to his, doing her best not to show him that he'd actually startled her.

"A classic," she said, a bit coolly. She was rather miffed that he'd skipped brunch this Sunday. They never skipped brunch.

"Sounds boring as fuck." he sat down next to her on the table, enough distance between them that they didn't touch, but close enough. He inspected the mostly empty courtyard, avoiding her eyes. She shut the book with purpose and steeled herself.

"You skipped brunch."

"I had a tourny." he looked at her, all his aloofness slipping when he saw the genuine confusion on her face. "Didn't I tell you that?"

"No." she wasn't sure what else to say, now that he wasn't being the biggest jerk alive.

"Ah, shit." he ran a hand over his head; he'd shaved it for wrestling season and she wasn't sure which hair style she liked better on him. "I'm sorry, I thought I did. It wasn't exactly the first thing on my mind this weekend."

"And what was?" the question had more bite to it than she wanted it to.

"You fucking know." avoiding her eyes again now. She wanted to grab his chin and make him look at her but that was too much, for both of them.

"No, I really don't." and she didn't. She'd spent the entire weekend thinking about Frank's kiss, but she had no idea if he'd done the same. She didn't know much about him at all, actually.

"Think it over," he advised, getting up, walking away and flipping his hood up in front of his eyes. 

"Frank!" she called and he paused, looking over his shoulder. Her heart broke for him, for reasons she didn't know.

"See ya around, princess." a little smirk on his face and she couldn't resist the smile that was creeping across her face.

* * *

"Karen. Karen! KAREN!"

"Jesus Christ Foggy." Karen ducked her head when he approached, nearly smacking her. "What?"

"I thought I was going to miss you." he was panting, having clearly ran down the entire hallway to get to her. She continued to jam things in her backpack, ready to leave for the weekend.

"What?" she was still in a bad mood. Frank had avoided her for most of the week, except for his cryptic words on Monday. She wanted to go home, lay in bed, and mope for most of the weekend, as incredibly stupid as that sounded.

"No, I just wanted to see what you were doing this weekend." he was looking at her oddly and she was sure it was because she seemed so frustrated. "If you wanted to hang out."

"I can't." it was an absolute lie, but Karen didn't have time to explain anything else to him. She was too tired and irritable, and taking it out on her anger at Frank on Foggy wasn't fair, but it was tempting. "Family stuff."

"If you can get out of it, Kevin's always invited." Foggy walked next to her out of the school, down the steps, and towards the bus. "Matt's hanging out with Claire, so I thought we could--"

A sharp whistle split the air. Karen straightened up automatically; she knew that whistle. Only Frank got her attention like that and she looked away from the buses towards the line of cars to where she spotted him, leaning against it. Even at this distance, she could tell his eyes were on her.

"I have to go," she said abruptly, changing direction.

"Karen, your bus is this way." Foggy gave her a confused tug but Karen shrugged it off. If Frank wanted to talk, then she'd go talk. If only to tell him to fuck off for kissing her like that and not saying shit to her.

"I'm not taking the bus. I've got a ride."

"Who?" Foggy questioned, but then she saw his eyes go wide when he realized her intent and therefore his answer. Frank's arms were folded and he was wearing a hoodie, but there was no mistaking where Karen was headed. "Wait, Karen! Wait!"

"What?" she rounded on his, hair flying. She was furious and her heart was pounding in her chest. If he would just leave her alone, she'd go and fight with Frank. But if he was going to hold her back, then he'd have to face her wrath.

"You're going with him?" concern was written all over Foggy's face, but Karen didn't think it was for the right reasons. She didn't belong to him, he wasn't in charge of protecting her. And he sure as hell couldn't tell her what to do.

"Yeah, I am." she drew herself up to her full height, which wasn't much, but she had fury on her side.

"Why?" Foggy looked befuddled and concerned, and Karen's anger gave way. But only a little.

"Because he's actually a good guy. And we're friends."

"Friends?" Foggy's eyes about bugged out of his head. "I didn't know you had other friends than me and Matt."

Whatever notion Karen had to forgive him disintegrated right then and there; she spun on her heel and stormed away, towards Frank. Sure, she didn't have many friends. And she wasn't exactly opening herself up to new things and trying. But she wasn't some loser like Foggy made her out to be.

"What do you want?" she snapped, when she reached Frank. Now she was well and truly fuming, her annoyance at Foggy compounded with her anger and hurt towards Frank. She stared up at him, cheeks hot.

"To talk to you." he wasn't looking at her, he was looking over her shoulder at where Foggy was probably still standing, stunned. Frank's eyes were narrowed. "Why was he giving you trouble?"

"He doesn't think I should talk to you," she said bluntly, "since he thinks you're a bad guy."

“Yeah?" Frank's eyes slid to her. "And what about you? You think I'm a bad guy?"

"Sometimes." she jutted her chin out in a challenge and she saw something flash in Frank's eyes, something hungry and dark.

"Yeah?" he stood up fully, so that he was looming over her. "You listen to the rumors, to the stereotypes, you think I'm some big, dumb, scary jock?"

"You're not dumb," she admitted quietly and Frank's hand came up, like it was going to touch her face. Then he grabbed the back of his neck with a bit of sheepish grin.

"I think I might be."

"Frank," she sighed, all of her frustrations slipping away in the face of him, with his brown eyes so soft and the goofy twist of his mouth when he looked down at her.

"I missed brunch," he admitted and she remembered why she was so angry in the first place, steeling herself and refolding her arms.

"You did," she said stoutly and he stepped aside, opening the car door for her.

"Let me explain?" he requested and she wavered, glancing over her shoulder in spite of herself. Foggy was still standing there, jaw hanging down a little bit. She was sure he was going to be disgruntled about this, but why was that her problem? She slid into Frank's car.

He drove her in silence to the diner, but that was alright with Karen. She was finally focused on her roiling emotions and what had to be on Frank's mind, though she would admit he looked entirely content. That annoyed her. What right did he have, so calm and cool and collected, as she fretted over every last thing? He had kissed her!

He opened the door for her at the diner and walked in beside her like it was nothing, smiling to the waitress and going right for their booth. Karen slid across from him, eyes narrowed. This was unlike him; usually he was blunt to the point of fault with her. She opened a menu, pretending to look it over like she didn't order the exact same thing every time.

"What can I get you two?" the waitress asked, flipping her pad open with a snap.

"I'll take a glass of milk, a plate of onion rings, and she'll take the milkshake. Chocolate, lots of whipped cream."

"Should've known." the pad snapped back shut. "Be back in a second then."

"Maybe I wanted something different." she scowled at him.

"Did you?" he raised an eyebrow and she huffed, closing the menu. "Aw, don't be mad. I'll share the onion rings."

"I don't want your gross smelly food." she turned up her nose and he chuckled; it incensed her further that nothing she seemed to do bothered him. She wanted him to feel as off balanced as she was, especially when he was the one who had done something to upset the fragile, delicate bridge that was their friendship.

"Ah, order whatever you want then." he leaned back against the booth and stretched his arms; she pretending not to notice how the fabric was tight against his chest and peek of biceps. "I'll buy. I owe you."

"Do you?" she saw her opportunity and took it. "And why's that?"

"I missed brunch," he said, like it should've been obvious.

"Why else?" she pressed and and was pleased to note a hint of pink in his cheeks as he grabbed the creamer cups and began stacking them.

“So why’s your friend think I’m a bad guy then?” he demanded, changing the subject. She huffed, annoyed at the detour, but a little glad too. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear Frank’s answers.

“Because you’re a wrestler.”

“He thinks I’m a big dumb jock then.” Contempt crossed his face. “Just like everyone else at that fucking school.”

“I don’t,” she repeated, disliking that she just grouped him in with everyone else.

“Yeah, you don’t.” he finally looked at her then and it was with the queerest expression on his face. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” suddenly uncomfortable, she looked away. There was something in his eyes, so intense and unlike him, it unnerved her. “Because…. You got Kevin’s wheelchair inside the house. You gave me a map of the school. You talk to me. Your favorite character is Boo Radley. You’re just…. Frank.”

“You knew.” he sounded choked up as he spoke. “Why’d you follow me?”

“You were upset.” she knew exactly what he was talking about, how could she not? “I saw you, so I followed you.”

“You saw me.” the words were said with equal parts malice and wonder; she looked at him in confusion. He was looking out the window now, a little snarl on his lips. “Yeah, you fucking saw me.”

“Did you not want me to?” she demanded and he looked at her, his hands suddenly taking hers.

“No one ever fucking sees me, Karen. No one. My parents don’t give a fuck about me. You know how many of my meets they’ve been to? Shit, I could count on one hand. But do I give a fuck? Nah. I’m the best goddamn wrestler. My parents don’t see that, but everyone else does. All I’m good for, right? That’s what coach tells me. Fuck school, fuck grades, so long as I can stay on the mat. And everyone sees me as a big dumb jock, like your little friend.

“But you didn’t Karen. You don’t see that. You don’t give a shit about that. I have no idea what you give a shit about, besides your brother. And it’s like - goddamn - for the first time, someone is looking at me and seeing me for who I am and fuck, that’s scary but it’s like - like - like -“ his eyes searched her face and she was breathless, astonished at his words. “It’s like, fuck, I don’t know, I…. I need you.”

“Of course I see you.” her throat felt like it was getting constricted. How could he break her heart like this? “But why’d you kiss me?”

“I….” he opened and closed his mouth a few times, then looked down, embarrassed. “I wanted to?”

“I….” now she was the one without words. “You just…. Did that and then missed brunch and then didn’t talk to me and…. I thought it was something I did.”

“Jesus christ.” he let her hands go to run a hand through his hair. “You didn’t do shit, you just…. I don’t know what the hell it is about you, Karen Page.”

“In a good way or a bad way?” she narrowed her eyes. He grinned at her then, as the waitress came back with her milkshake.

They talked normally for awhile then, bickering about the answers he’d given on a history test that had been marked wrong. Karen found herself swiping onion rings and fending off his attempts to drink her milkshake, laughing as she did. And when he paid the bill, ignoring her trying to hand him money, he slid an arm around her shoulders on the way out and she didn’t hate it.

In the car, he kept a hand on her knee, sneaking little side looks at her. Karen had no idea what this was but she knew that for the first time since they’d moved to New York, she felt happiness. Real, warm happiness. And it flipped her stomach and stopped her heart just a little bit.

He walked her up to her front door, the both of them stopping in front of it, looking at each other. It was unspoken that once they’d crossed the threshold that Kevin would be there and they’d lose this little bit of magic they’d created. They stared at each other, Karen biting her lip nervously. She had no idea what this meant now or what he even intended.

She didn’t expect him to kiss her again, coming in a little too fast, pressing her back into the doorway. She gasped when he bit her lip and he pulled back, looking at her in concern. When he saw it was only surprise on his face, he grinned and kissed her again, softer this time.

“See you around princess,” he muttered, backing away. She watched him depart, mind utterly blank.

* * *

“Princess!” Frank’s yell startled her. She looked up from her book; half the library was staring at them.

“What?” she hissed as the librarian glared at them. Frank hopped a railing with ease, jogging up the stairs to where she sat.

“Whatcha reading?” he asked nonchalantly and she rolled her eyes.

“Why were you yelling?”

“Cause it’d make you mad.” he had a cheeky grin on her face.

“Remind me why I like you,” she huffed and he tapped a finger under her chin.

“Don’t admit that too loudly, someone might hear you.”

“Everyone can see that you’re a pain in my ass,” she countered and he laughed out loud, leaning down to give her a kiss on the lips. It shocked her and she jumped in her seat, but he was walking away before she could even open her eyes.

“Tell Kevin I’ll bring burgers over tonight after practice,” he called then disappeared through the doorway with his unmistakable swagger.

Karen gritted her teeth as she heard the whispers start.

* * *

“So we have to talk.” Matt sat down next to her and she glanced up at him. “You’re avoiding Foggy.”

“Am not. I’m a lab ahead of you guys in Chemistry, I had to be partners with Daniel.”

“And you’re kissing Frank Castle.”

“Jesus.” she looked at him. “Can you hear everything at this school?”

“Nearly.” he sat down across from her with a crooked smile. “And what I don’t, Claire usually does.”

“Ah.” she’d forgotten about that. “Yeah.”

“He’s not mad at you,” Matt started and she looked at him, astonished.

“He’s not mad at me?”

“Well, no, I think confused and disappointed but—“

“My god you two!” she exploded, standing and slamming her book shut. “After he acts like a piece of shit who is friends with me just because I’m pretty, then tells me I don’t have any other friends than you two, then expects me to go on dates with him, and acts like I’m some bitch when I go with Frank! And he wants you to reassure me that he’s not mad at me? Christ, he’s lucky I haven’t kicked his ass!”

“Whoa.” Matt seemed startled by her reaction. “I don’t think that he meant—“

“No, he meant it when he said Frank was a bad guy without talking to him. And he assumes that Frank’s life is perfect, when it’s not. And he meant it when he said that I don’t have any other friends. But fuck, maybe I should.”

“You seem really touchy about this.” it was clear Matt was treading carefully. “I just want to make sure you’ve thought it out—“

“Thought what out? Kissing Frank?” her cheeks were hot as she said it. “I don’t have to think that through. Because unlike you guys, he’s never made me feel like a piece of shit for my choices!”

“I’ve made you feel like a piece of shit for your choices?” Matt seemed stunned at the revelation. “When?”

“Whenever.” she deflated some. “Whenever you tried to make it seem like, I don’t know, Foggy and I would be good together.”

“Only because I do think you would be.”

“Why?” she put her hands on her hips and watched with satisfaction as his mouth opened and closed a few times before he hung his head in defeat. “Exactly. You just think that it would be fun to double date. You think that because he’s a good guy, I owe him something!”

“I think that he really likes you,” Matt tried to argue, “and that he’s a better choice than Frank Castle.”

“You don’t know the first fucking thing about Frank Castle,” she said lowly, grabbing her backpack and swinging it over her shoulder. “Not a damned thing.”

She stalked out.

* * *

“Where’s Matt and Foggy?” Kevin asked her, as they headed into the wrestling match. Frank had invited them and she’d accepted, teasing him that she was only there to write another story. He’d promised her an exclusive with the star wrestler and then had run off, laughing.

“They’d don’t really like sports.” Karen hadn’t talked to either of them the past couple days; Daniel had become her stand in lab partner and though he usually spent the entire period telling her all about his relationship with his girlfriend, she didn’t mind him. She hated that she could feel Foggy’s eyes on her the entire time, but she wasn’t going to apologize to him for his own mistakes.

“Are you going to sit by me or on the mat?” Kevin asked, as they paid to get in.

“By you.” she wanted to sit on the mat, but she’d stick to Kevin. That was what he deserved. His grin reassured her she’d made the right choice and they took up a spot in the handicap section, talking as the wrestlers warmed up. She watched Frank out of the corner of her eye, trying not to make it too obvious what she was doing. But it became clear when the other weight classes started wrestling, she spent half as much time watching the mat as she did the bench.

“Do you think he’s going to win?” Kevin had spent the entire week researching Frank’s opponent. Karen was sure he could share all the stats if she asked.

“Yes.” she didn’t miss a beat. “He always does.”

Despite her conviction, it was a close match. Karen, even though she knew less than nothing about wrestling, found herself screaming as Frank struggled to get the kid into a headlock and drag him down to the mat. She winched when they separated once and Frank was dripping blood from his forehead. He got cleaned up and went back to it, brown eyes flashing.

“Go Frank!” Kevin bellowed behind her; Karen herself was crouched on the ground, head in hands, watching as Frank worked to pin, everyone around them screaming for him. “C’mon Frank!”

“C’mon Frank,” she whispered, like a prayer from between the gaps of her fingers. “Oh, c’mon Frank, just….”

With a cheer, she shot up when Frank pinned the kid down. The referee waited a few moments before calling it and Frank rose, victorious. She was cheering, bouncing up and down, and then she saw his eyes search the crowd before coming to rest on her. It was a moment and then a smile so wide it split his face crossed over him and he pointed to her before being mobbed by his teammates.

“What was that?” Kevin asked, as she sat back down, to regain her composure.

“What was what?” she tried to brush it off and Kevin’s eyes narrowed.

“That. With Frank.”

“What with Frank?” she played dumb.

“That…. Thing. The thing with the pointing and the acting like…. Something.”

“You’re being weird,” she scoffed, ruffling his hair. “There was nothing.”

It was clear he didn’t believe her, but it didn’t take long for his question to be answered. After the match, after the teams had shaken hands and patted each other on the back, Frank jogged over to them. Before Karen could even congratulate him on the pin and helping win the match, he swept her up in his arms and kissed her. Behind her, vaguely, she could hear what sounded like Kevin choking.

“Ew!” he finally exclaimed when Frank let her go, but only so that he could slide an arm around her waist and pull her in close. “What the fuck?”

“Oh, you haven’t told him?” Frank looked down at her in amusement and she scowled back at him.

“No.”

“Embarrassed of me, princess?”

“When did this start?” Kevin ignored them and Frank shrugged.

“Don’t know what to tell you kid. Your sister is hot.”

“Frank!” blushing, Karen smacked his chest as he laughed.

“I will run you over with my chair, don’t think I won’t. That’s just gross!”

* * *

Karen didn’t raise her head when Foggy sat down across from her. He was quiet, but he clearly took her staying where she was as a sign of encouragement. After a few moments, during which Karen assumed he was crafting his words to minimize an outburst from her, he spoke in careful, measured tones.

“I think I owe you an apology.” silence greeted him; she wanted to see how far he got before he messed it up too badly. “I didn’t treat you the greatest and that was really shitty of me, I get that now. I do like being your friend and if you don’t want to be my friend, I get it. I’m sorry for what I said.”

“Matt talked to you?” she guessed, despite herself.

“Yeah,” he admitted quietly and she chuckled. She wanted to forgive Foggy. For all of his flaws, he was one of the nicest people she’d ever met. And as much as it bothered her, he was one of the few people she’d let in since moving here, and that was because he’d just assumed they were friends from the minute he met her. He usually meant well. But she also wasn’t going to tolerate him talking poorly of Frank, not without ever really talking to him.

“You kind of were being a dick,” she told him and he hung his head.

“I know. I was.”

“I’m not Matt. I don’t just let you say whatever you want and not call you out on it,” she reminded him, a bit urgently. He looked up at her like he wanted to argue, then sighed and nodded, admitting her point.

“I know. I guess, I just thought that the whole thing with you and Castle was, I don’t know….”

“Just because I like him doesn’t mean I can’t be friends with you,” she reminded him, guessing the source of his discomfort. “Frank isn’t like all the other guys. You’ve never actually talked to him, but I have. A lot. And he’s not just some mindless athlete. He’s a good guy, just like you.”

“Yeah, but why do girls always go for guys like him?” Foggy allowed himself one little moment, pouting before looking a bit guilty, like he knew he’d done wrong.

“Frank never assumed that we’d become anything,” she told him cooly and Foggy hastily backtracked, sensing they were in dangerous territory again.

“No, I just mean, for guys that…. That….”

“That are?” she cocked an eyebrow.

“That aren’t me,” he finished and hung his head. Karen sighed, pitying him just a little. She reached across the table and caught his hand.

“Hey, Foggy. Listen. Some really great girl is going to fall in love with you and you’ll love her too. But me, I’m a little bit too mean for you.”

“Really?” he glanced at her, sounding a bit hopefully. She nodded.

“Yeah, you’d hate dating me. I’m a complete crab. We’re better off as friends where you can tell me when I’m being an asshole and my feelings won’t get hurt.”

“Really?” he’d brightened considerably. “Well, you can tell me when I’m being an asshole too then.”

“Believe me,” she snorted, “I will.”

* * *

“I really love this,” Frank admitted, rubbing his thumb over her hand.

“Mmm?” she couldn’t look back at him over her shoulder; that would require her to crank her neck an awkward way and she liked sitting between Frank’s legs as they slowly watched the gym empty out. Kevin was with Foggy and Matt, getting the discounted leftovers at the concession stand. It was one of the final home meets before Frank would go onto sections and then state.

“Yeah. It’s nice having someone to celebrate with after.” she felt Frank’s cheek press into the side of her head. It amused her, that he was much more affectionate than she’d ever imagined he’d be. He was a tangible person, he always had to be touching or feeling her. She got the sense that he was a little bit touch starved, from the way he leaned into every interaction with her. And she loved it all the same as well, but for slightly different reasons.

“Need someone to tell you that you did a good job?” she teased gently and felt his fingers dig in ever so slightly.

“Nah, I like seeing you lose your shit on the sidelines.”

“You can’t even see me,” she fought back and he laughed.

“Yeah I can. Jumping around and screaming your head off. I can hear you too.”

“Then what do I say?”

“Usually you’re just yelling my name. Which I don’t mind, princess.”

“Hey.” she smacked his arm. “I’m being supportive.”

“Yeah, you are.” his arms tightened around her and she knew he was thinking of his parents. She’d met them, a month or so ago, going to his house one weekend. They were older - she was willing to bet almost in their mid-60’s. Her grandparents were probably that old. They were nice enough, had greeted her with a polite smile, but were almost immediately back to whatever they were watching on TV. She could’ve made out with Frank on the kitchen table and they probably wouldn’t have minded.

She sat with him awhile longer, as the janitor swept, as Frank swayed behind her ever so slightly.

High school was still a pain in the ass here.

But she’d admit, it had it’s upsides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE SO MANY FEELS ABOUT HIGH SCHOOL FRANK CASTLE AND I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO TALK ABOUT THEM ALL. 
> 
> reviews are kidness


	8. Sunshine Riptide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world tried to burn all the mercy out of me
> 
> But you know I wouldn't let it
> 
> It tried to teach me the hard way
> 
> I can't forget it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm only going to say it once, i did not like karen page's backstory and i'm not sorry
> 
> also frank is the only one who deserves to be told it and that's a fact

“Karen! KAREN! Get in the van!” 

“What the fuck Frank?” Karen hisses, when Frank appears from the alley. He’s wearing a hoodie that’s pulled up so that his eyes are cast into shadow. She’s already got her fingers curled around the gun in her purse but she lets it go when she sees that it’s him with his hands spread wide. 

“Get in the van,” he repeats, and she can see over his shoulder the grey utility van that she’s sure he’s stolen from somewhere. 

“Absolutely not, why the fuck would I ever get into a van?” she demands, even as his hand closes around her elbow and he’s pulling her towards it. She almost trips on her heels, but Frank is practically carrying her anyways so neither of them misses a step. “Tell me what the hell is going on, Frank!” 

“Listen, Lieberman got some intel,” he says gruffly, his left foot splashing in a puddle so she doesn’t have to step in it. “We gotta get out of town.” 

“What did you do?” Karen looks at him suspiciously, as he opens the door for her and nearly strong arms her into the passenger seat. “Frank, what the hell is going — Don’t shut the door! — tell me what’s going on!” 

“He got intel, ok?” Frank slams the door and Karen stares at him in annoyance as he crosses in front of the van. When he climbs into the driver seat, Karen holds the keys hostage. He sighs, exasperated already. “Gimme the keys, Karen.” 

“Tell me what the fuck is going on,” she bargains, holding them out of his reach. Frank tries to lunge for them but Karen catches him in the chest and pushes him back. For a second they grapple before he gives up and sits back, huffing. 

“We gotta go,” he tells her and Karen wiggles the keys, mouth a thin line that means she won’t waver. Frank’s dark eyes flicker but then some tension runs out of him.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she repeats, but a little softer. “Then I promise I’ll do whatever you say.” 

“Okay, fine.” he looks away for a moment, smacks the steering wheel for good measure, then turns to her. “David’s been hearing some chatter, shit about me, Jones, the others. Worse than usual. Thought it might be best to get out of town, lay low for a little bit, but then…. then I fuckin’ heard—” he breaks off again, speechless with his anger, and Karen slowly hands him the keys back. That can only mean one thing. Her past with the Punisher isn’t exactly secret, and criminals smarter than a log might realize that Karen Page seems to know just a little more than she should.

“Okay, okay, we’ll get out of town then,” she says softly, reaching for him and squeezing his forearm. “Just…. You sorta scared this shit out of me with the whole hoodie and alley and yelling about a van thing, yeah?” 

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he mutters, starting the car. “Surprised I don’t have a slug in my ass.” 

“Thought about it,” Karen mummers back, and they both have a hint of a smile when he replies,

“Bet you did.”

The drive out of the city is quiet; Karen watches Frank and takes her cues from him. He keeps his focus on the road, but occasionally his gaze moves to her, just a glance that lasts no more than a long moment and makes her feel like she might just be glad that he basically kidnapped her on her walk home. They’re nearly out of the tunnel when something occurs to her and she twists around to look in the backseat. 

“Well, I’m glad we’re prepared for whatever this is,” Karen remarks, seeing several huge, bulging bags and camping gear piled high. She’s sure if she looks closely enough she’ll find enough food to feed a small country, and enough tools to construct a high security bunker. 

“We just need to get out of the city, let things settle a little.” he scratches his beard. It’s been growing out again, and Karen wonders what form of subterfuge it’s for. “I’ve got a place, keep us out of trouble. Let someone else handle it.” 

“Really?” Karen is surprised that Frank would give up control, but then he gives her a long look. 

“Jones wants to handle it, and Cage too,” he explains, “but they said that they might, might come for anyone who knows about—”

“Okay.” Karen knows, from Foggy and Trish and the rest, all the things that Frank has been dragged into and by association, her. “Okay, well, I’m sure I’m good for a spontaneous midweek vacation. That will give Ellison no cause for concern.” 

“You can’t—” he turns to her, about to give her orders, but Karen already holds up her cellphone, shut off so that it can’t be tracked. For a second, she thinks he’s about to smile at her, a genuine smile, but then he goes back to the road. 

“So anything for me back there?” Karen looks over her shoulder again, trying to see if any of the bags might contain anything besides guns and grenades and whatever else Frank Castle takes on a camping trip. 

“Uh, yeah.” he looks back at it, before a quick sideline glance to her. “I grabbed some stuff for you, I, uh, it’s not much, but it’ll— if you need anything, I can get it, but--” 

“No, no, don’t worry,” Karen says hastily, her fingertips tapping over his forearm, hesitating to rest it there. Touch is something still new to them; there’s moments where reaching him seems so attainable, then others where she might as well be standing on the other side of an ocean from him. 

“I’m sorry,” he says abruptly and Karen retracts her hand quickly. “I pulled you away from shit, that wasn’t, that wasn’t, I didn’t mean to—”

“Frank, don’t." she tries to ease him. “I get it. I understand, okay? Don’t. I’m glad you’re keeping me safe, okay?” she looks up at him, trying to make some of the tension in his shoulders lessen, but she’s not sure how. Instead she watches the sights of the New Jersey turnpike go by. 

“I just….” Frank’s hand leaves the steering wheel like it’s going to come to hers, but then he draws it back and silence falls. 

“Wait—” something occurs to Karen when they’ve been riding in the peace for some time, something that makes her heart race. “Wait, where’s David, Sarah, the kids, are they—do they need to—”

“He’s fine,” Frank reassures her quickly with a long look and his deep voice. “He’s fine, they’re all fine. No one knows it’s him listening, they haven’t connected him to any of this shit, okay?”

“But they connected me,” Karen states and Frank’s hands tighten on the wheel, knuckles going white. “Frank, you don’t have to tell me who it is, or whatever it’s because of, but can you at least tell me how?”

“Because, Karen,” Frank’s voice is sharp, something in it sounding like he is restraining himself from shouting the rest of it at her. “You put yourself out there. For me, for Red, for Jones, for all of us. People, these people, they notice that shit. They see that you care. And when they want to make things hurt, they go for people like you, okay? People like you and Claire and Trish and—”

_And your wife and your kids and everyone you love,_ Karen finishes silently in her head. She wants to tell Frank she understands. She gets it. She’s even thankful that he worries after her safety, just like Foggy, Ellison, even Matt in his own way. She’s glad that when he sees a storm coming, he thinks to shelter her first. She just wishes that he would let her in just enough so that maybe she could protect him too.

“Well, I like camping,” she states, hoping that will take Frank’s mind off the dark places she knows it wanders to. “How long are you thinking?”

“We’re geared for a week, maybe a little more,” he admits after a sullen silence. Karen nods, thinking that Ellison may in fact kill her upon her arrival back in the offices. She’ll find a payphone, give him a call. She resigns herself to the fact that her story might be given over to someone else, then decides that if she’s going to be stuck in a van for however long the drive might be, she’ll do it in something other than her tight pencil skirt and high heels.

She bends forward, undoing the straps that have been digging into her ankles. She kicks both shoes off, rubbing the indent, encouraging blood flow. When she straightens up, she notices that Frank is watching her, just out of the corner of his eye. She continues on, tugging her shirt out of the waist band of her skirt. She reaches behind her so that she can find the zipper and draw it down enough to relieve the pressure on her stomach.

“Oh, better,” she sighs, able to sit comfortably without it compressing her internal organs. Frank’s eyes slide to her yet again, and when his hood is down she can see the depth there in them, the warm brown.

“We can, uh, stop at a gas station if you wanna…. Change,” he offers slowly and Karen raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah? You mean I don’t have to camp in my work clothes?”

“No,” he snickers, likely at the thought of her hiking around in her heels and a silk blouse. “Your shit is in the black bag.”

“Oh, great, because there’s only one black bag,” Karen replies, deadpan, and the look Frank gives her is half affronted, half amused.

“The smaller one.”

“Well, okay.” Karen twists so that she can inspect the bags again. There is a smaller black bag sitting atop what she assumes is the tent, so she stretches backwards, catching the strap with just her fingertips. It takes a couple tries, but after a moment she’s succeeded in dragging it towards the front and onto her lap.

Frank keeps his gaze firmly affixed to the traffic in front of them as she unzips the main compartment. Part of her dreads what might be inside – he’s the Punisher, not a stylist – but she makes herself promise not to goad him. He very well could’ve kidnapped her without a second thought as to what she might want or need. Any clothes he brought would be better than what she’d have to buy at a gas station in rural New York.

She nearly gasps when she opens the bag fully and sees what’s packed neatly inside. It looks like Frank has bought out an entire North Face store; she feels a soft three quarter zip sweatshirt, some hiking shorts, a few tank tops, joggers. At the bottom, she even finds running shoes and flip flops. In the side pockets, she is surprised to locate toiletries; organic deodorant, a toothbrush, a ring of hair ties, and more. She turns to Frank, unsure of what to say.

“Marine,” he responds to her stunned silence without so much as glancing at her. “Always prepared.”

“I thought that was the motto of the Boy Scouts,” she replies, before she can express her gratitude.

“Sayin’ I wasn’t a Boy Scout?” Frank raises an eyebrow.

“Maybe not your style,” she smiles slightly to think of a young Frank. She wonders if he looked like Frankie, all mischievous eyes and a mop of dark hair. Before the rage, the pain, the blood and bruises. Before the hurt, what was he like? What would a small Frank Castle be like? She stops that train of thought before it can carry her any further.

“Nah, I’m pretty I shoved them in lockers,” he remarks and Karen’s fingers curl around the handle of the bag. Frank has told her so little about his past, and none of it before his family. She knows Maria, she knows his children. But she doesn’t know the Frank that came before that; she doesn’t know anything at all.

“Were you a bully, Frank Castle?” She asks him, a hint of teasing in her voice and when he looks at her, half a smirk pulling those lips up, it feels for a heartbeat that they might be any new couple off on their first trip out of the city.

“You think the fuckin’ Punisher is a new nickname, ma’am?”

“Oh, oh, I see, I get it now,” Karen is smiling, nodding her head, because this banter, it comes too easy to them. It’s too easy to slip into it with no thought of ever returning. She’s flirted with Matt, sure, and even a little bit with Foggy. But this is not flirting with Frank; it’s something easier and simpler. A language all their own, one that she’s picked up without having to study it. Natural. “You were the kid that picked on kids like me.”

“You got picked on?” A glance her way, all brown eyes and a flash of white teeth. “Nah, I don’t believe that.”

“Mhmm,” Karen bobs her head. “I did. True story. It was a girl, uh, Maddie…. Maddie Baker. Yeah, you two would’ve been buddies.”

“Aw, c’mon Karen, don’t do me like that,” Frank protests, one hand on the steering wheel, his elbow propped up on the center consul between them. His hand, resting lightly between them. Like she could bridge the gap and take it. 

“A bully is a bully, Frank.”

“Yeah, but I never would’ve picked on you,” he tells her. “I only picked on the nerdy kids and shit.”

“I was nerdy,” Karen states, with a little laugh. She remembers her glasses, oversized. They’d made her eyes look like a bug peering out from behind a magnifying glass. Combined with her small stature, her long hair constantly pulled back in a braid, and the stack of books she carried clutched to her chest, she’d been befitting of every stereotype there was.

“Don’t believe it,” Frank shakes his head and Karen rolls her eyes.

“I was. I came from a small town, everyone knew everyone, and I didn’t really fit in. That’s brutal when you have the same twenty or so kids in your class from elementary school to graduation,” she explains and this time Frank’s look is longer, slower. The crease between his eyebrows makes it seem like he’s puzzling something out, slowly but surely.

“Forgot you weren’t from New York,” he says finally, after a long silence.

“Nope,” Karen folds her hands in her lap quietly, noting that her grey polish needs a repaint. It’ll likely chip away if she’s in the woods with Frank long enough. “Country girl.”

“Twenty kids?” Frank brings to subject back on track before the moment grows too thick, and Karen is grateful that they don’t lapse into silence. “That’s all? Think I had about twenty kids that I knew first and last names for.”

“Let me guess.” Karen seizes the opportunity to press into the past. “You had a graduating class of like 600. You were one of the naughty kids. Rowdy. Got into trouble, but not too much. Could’ve been a good athlete and student if you would’ve tried?” she grins at him.

“Careful or I’ll think you’ve found my fuckin’ yearbook.” he nearly laughs, but a thorn of sadness has twisted up into Karen’s heart as she thinks that the yearbook he speaks of is likely ash now, amid the ruin of the house he’d built with a wife and children. Given his age and that of Lisa and Frankie, she had guessed that he’d married Maria young, far younger than most. Maybe not even 20 yet. Was she in that yearbook too?

“Yeah, well.” Karen isn’t sure what to say when his grief suddenly becomes her own; it’s hard to hide away from it. She feels it slam into her with a rush and for a briefest of moments, she understands him more clearly than ever; how it must be to run on anger and pain and a grief so thick that it chokes the life out of everything else. But then she closes that pain away, because it is not hers and to feel it seems like a disloyal service to Maria and Lisa and Frankie, to even Frank himself.

“Still don’t think I would’ve bullied you though,” Frank doesn’t appear to notice that she’s gone quiet, drawing herself back in. She’s grateful that for once his astute perception skills seem to be lacking.

“No?” Karen squeezes her hands together and attempts to interject some joy back into her voice. “I knew guys like you in high school. If they didn’t ignore me completely, they teased me.”

“Yeah, but only because they probably thought you were pretty,” Frank retorts and some part of Karen’s delicate heart cracks just a little more, imagining a young Frank teasing her because he thought she was pretty. “Pullin’ your pigtails, all that shit.”

“You ever pull any pigtails, Frank?” she asks him and he chuckles.

“Yeah, I might’ve.”

“No one pulled my pigtails,” she tells him and it’s right there, on the tip of her tongue, to tell him why. Why no one ever asked Karen Page on a date, or slid her a note about checking a box yes or no. It’s right there to tell him about her father and her brother and the reason why no one ever so much as gave her more than a second look. But she doesn’t, because the iron bars of self-control that she’s honed for so many years don’t break so easily. “Maybe because I always wore a braid.”

“Yeah?” Frank looks at her hair, long and blonde. Karen reaches up automatically, sliding her fingers into it. Her grandma had been the one to teach her how to French braid her own hair, afternoons in an old farm kitchen filled with sunlight and the smell of baked goods. Her mother’s mother, with thin white hair that had once been so like Karen’s own.

“Yeah.” her voice is soft, lost in the memories. She wants to share it with him, she wants to give him the story. She threads her fingers through her hair, grasping the smooth strands, and remembers when it was Frank’s hand in her hair. “Yeah, don’t think there was a day that went by in middle school without it.”

“You any good?” he asks, even as she starts to tighten the start of the braid.

“Dunno, haven’t done it in a while,” she admits, though that is mostly a lie. She braids her hair whenever she’s stressed, or upset, or just needs to get it out of her face. She separates three stands then starts to weave them together. They’re both quiet, Karen focused on making sure that her hair lies flat, that the braid is smooth and even, and Frank watching her and the road.

“Well shit,” he mutters when she ties off the end neatly. “You do better than I ever did.”

“I had a good teacher,” Karen says with a little smile. He notices that mention into her past; she can tell because his eyelids lower ever so slightly, like if he squints he’ll see past the walls she throws up, but then when she doesn’t elaborate, the moment passes.

“I couldn’t do Lisa’s hair for shit. My fingers were too big, you know? Too rough. She got pretty good when I was gone once. I came back, kid could do ponytails and braids and other shit faster than I could even think, like a damn pro. She had my hair too, so it wasn’t easy to control,” he tells her and the familiar grip is tightening Karen’s heart. She wants so badly to have met this little girl, who must’ve had all the sweetness Frank hides away now.

“Neither could my brother,” Karen tells him, the words like ash in her mouth. The mention of Kevin always hurts somewhere deep in her chest, like a crack that has been mending but breaks open again when pressure is applied.

“Yeah?” Frank looks at her and she realizes that she’s never told him that she had a brother. Kevin was once such a big part of her, Karen and Kevin, but now there are so many people that don’t know she had a second half. It makes her dizzy to imagine that she’s letting him be forgotten. Frank doesn’t pry or question, but sits in silence, waiting for her to add to it. A give and take, like that exchange in the hospital room. Nothing further than the other is comfortable with.

“Yeah, he tried to learn. Wanted to practice on my dolls, and I wouldn’t let him." Karen smiles to think of her little brother trying to steal her dolls. He’d just been trying to annoy her and it had worked. Karen had chased him out of the house, screaming. “Then he tried to learn on my mom’s hair. I think he ripped a chunk out, but she never complained.”

“He, uh….” Frank hesitates, like he knows that this is a line that they’ve drawn, unspoken. But staying inside the lines, minding boundaries, that’s never been their style anyways. “You guys close?”

“We were, growing up,” Karen admits, the pain leaking out of her heart and into her chest, where it still burns as heavy as it did the day she’d gotten the call. “We were only a year apart, little more. Half the time he thought I was the coolest big sister there was and the other half I was too lame to even talk to.”

“Then?” Frank’s tone is as gentle as she’s ever heard it; the tone usually reserved for moments where either of them may die. It’s just one word, yet Karen’s chest is collapsing, caving in. Bone through her lungs, blood gushing to fill the holes, heart in its last few feeble beats…. Except on the outside she is stoic, a statue cut from marble that hides the weakness within.

“He’s gone.”

“Ah.” Frank is quiet, because that alone tells him more than he’ll ever need to know. Dead implies that he has passed on, he is at peace, and so is she. Gone implies that he was taken from her, unfairly, unwillingly, and that she has raged against that fact. Kevin Page is gone like Maria Castle, Lisa Castle, Frankie Castle. A graveyard filled with ghosts, all behind that one word.

**Gone**.

Silence envelopes them, the sort that falls after neither of them is ready to cross the divide between them. There’s so much unsaid, so much undone, that the weight of the what might be feels like it’s going to suffocate Karen. There’s no way to fix this, no way to resolve it beyond letting it sit. She remembers something a therapist once told her when she was younger and still thought that she could be fixed like a puzzle, if someone would just tell her where the pieces were.

_You sit with the things you can’t change, until you’re brave enough to try._

So she sits with Frank Castle and their pain and all the unspoken hurts that have been dealt to them and wonders when she’ll be brave enough.

He stops at a small gas station off the side of the road and Karen takes a change of clothes out of her bag, heading into the little building while he gets gas. She wants out of her tight work outfit; the days are still warm enough that she wants to put on a loose tank top. The clerk is a young girl, hair dyed purple with a nose ring and each nail a different color. She smiles warmly as Karen gives her a little nod and locates the bathroom.

She strips down, folding her work clothes nicely and setting them on the edge of the sink. She pulls on the shorts, surprised to find that they fit almost perfectly. Even the sports bra that she tugs on is her size. The flip flops are just right. For a second, Karen stares in the mirror, bewildered at her reflection. The clothes are cute, maybe not what she would’ve picked out for herself but close enough. She grabs her clothes and walks out of the bathroom, going to get a snack. She is just stocking up on chocolate in case Frank only brought MRE’s when the girl cranes her neck.

“You guys heading out to go camping?” she asks and Karen nearly jumps, turning to give her a hasty smile.

“Uh, yeah,” she blusters. “Yeah, camping.”

“Your boyfriend, he said to just ring up whatever you got with the gas,” she tells Karen, who practically snaps a candy bar in half at the implication of those words. Had Frank said girlfriend? Was that their cover story? Did the girl just assume?

“Oh, I’ll be quick then.” Karen forces her smile to be casual, grabbing a few pieces of fruit for good measure and heading to the counter. The girl scans the items with a well-practiced ease, glancing up at Karen with a little smile.

“Nice.”

“Sorry, what?” Karen tries for politeness, but she hates that the life she leads makes her wary of a 16-year-old girl in the throes of her rebellious phase working a minimum wage job.

“Nice,” the girl repeats, gesturing out the window. Karen follows her gaze and immediately flushes to see that Frank is leaning against the driver’s door, waiting for her. He’s shed his hoodie, clad in only a tee-shirt that does little to hide both the size of his arms and thick chest. “He’s hot. You’re a lucky lady.”

“I, uh, yes.” Karen is far too warm for this, as the girl bags her items. She’s not sure what else to say so she settles for a gracious, “Thank you.”

“Have a fun trip!” The girl hands her the bag with a cheerful smile, one Karen does her best to return, then walks back towards the van. Frank straightens up when he sees her and Karen glances at him. Big eyes, brown like old whiskey and warm soil, watching her. His nose, broken just a few hundred times. His lips, his scruff, his broad chest. He quirks an eyebrow and she looks up, lest she give anything away.

“Any trouble?” he asks lowly and she shakes her head, climbing in the passenger door, turning so she can put her clothes in the bag he’d packed for her. He climbs in next to her and starts the van. Karen waits until they are back on the road before she blurts her question out.

“How?”

“What?” Frank turns to look at her in apparent confusion.

“How did you get me clothes?” her cheeks burn after she’s asked him, but she can’t back down now. “They…. Fit.”

“Good,” Frank says shortly and Karen, partly annoyed, thinks that’s the end of it, before he continues. “David, uh, helped me.”

“Do not tell me that he can tell my size from his freaky program.” Karen is highly alarmed, mostly because she’s nearly very certain that it would be possible for David to have such a thing.

“Nah, better.” Frank’s mouth twitches like he’s going to smile, or at the very least, smirk outright. “A wife.”

“A…. Oh. Sarah,” Karen realizes, relaxing a little. “But, still, how’d she know my….”

“Small, extra small, size 0. You’re a twig, ma’am,” Frank comments, reaching inside the bag and pulling out a chocolate bar, offering it to her. Karen takes it after a pause, frowning. “I told Sarah to just grab whatever you’d need for camping.”

“Well, she has good taste,” Karen admits reluctantly and tears opening the chocolate, breaking him off a corner and giving it to him before she even really realizes what she does. When she checks to see his reaction, he’s just eating it, unbothered. These little moments slip in and seem so natural that it continuously surprises her. Everything with him seems right. She tries to ignore it. Something else occurs to her when she’s halfway done with her chocolate bar, so she turns to him again. “How did Sarah have time to pack me a bag?”

“I, uh...” for once, Frank is the one who looks a little uncomfortable. “I might have had it ready…. Before.”

“Before?” Karen echoes, wondering just how long Frank Castle has had an overnight bag packed away for her, ready at a moment’s notice to swoop in and kidnap her in his van. The thought, absurdly, makes her smile.

“Just in case,” he mutters defensively.

“Be prepared,” Karen agrees, then looks out the window so he doesn’t see her blush. 

By the time they’re well into the country, Karen has lost all sense of direction. She doesn’t bother asking Frank where they’re headed; part of her thinks he won’t tell her anyways, and besides, she trusts him. Implicitly. If Frank says to run, she’ll follow. If Frank tells her to duck, she’ll obey. And if Frank shows up in an alley and commands her to get into a van, well, she’ll always do it. 

The landscape that’s unfolding around them makes her a bit queasy. It’s a little too much like where she grew up. Karen Page knows the tragedy that has built Frank Castle into the man that sits next to her. But she’s not sure she’s ready for him to know the tragedy that’s made her. If he does, if he finally knows, will he stay? Karen doesn’t know. 

She half expects him to put a hood over her head when they pull into the state park, but he just gives her a lopsided little smile and turns down a dirt path. He navigates it with such ease, Karen’s stomach sinks. Was this where the little Castle family came camping? Was this where he took Maria to? Is that why he came here? Karen knows that his training has taught him to return to familiar ground when threatened. Some place like his home. The carousel. What ghosts await them here?

“Been camping much?” Frank breaks the silence first and Karen gives him a little half smile, half shrug. 

“Sorta. My parents didn’t take us, really, but my brother and I loved to drag our sleeping bags into the woods behind the house. We’d make it to maybe 8 or 9 at night before we’d high tail it back inside. My grandma always had hot chocolate ready for us,” she recalls and Frank glances at her. “I’m afraid I won’t be much help, sorry.” 

“That’s why I got it covered,” Frank assures her, moving on past the mention of her grandmother with relative ease. 

“I want to learn though,” Karen states, meaning it. Learning how to live off the grid might not be a bad skill set to have, considering her line of work and friends. Frank gives her a look that’s impossible to interpret, before he has to focus on the road. Karen watches the trees, the hills, the last glorious moments of summer that cling to nature like a lover. Fall will descend soon, but summer still holds court here. 

“This is us,” Frank mutters, when they’ve reached a parking lot. Karen can’t help but frown slightly; there are no campsites to be found, only trees and a gravel parking lot that’s seen better days. 

“I know I’m new to this, but where do we, you know, camp?” Karen asks, as Frank slides out of the van. 

“Three miles that way,” he tells her, pointing vaguely north, before he slams his door shut. Flabbergasted, Karen can only follow him out of the van, jaw agape. 

“What? Three miles? What the fuck?” 

“It’s a remote campsite,” Frank says patiently, as he opens the back door and starts hauling bags out. “Has good tree cover, and it’s tucked back against a lake. Natural barriers. Easier to defend.” 

“It’s three miles away,” Karen repeats, as Frank starts slinging bags on him like a pack mule. 

“We hike,” he offers, as though it should be obvious and Karen takes the small bag that contains her clothing, still trying to catch up. “It’s carry in, carry out.” 

“And as excited as I am for the prospect of this hike, did it ever occur to you to stay somewhere a little less difficult to reach?” Karen presses. Frank looks up at her like the very idea bewilders him. 

“If it’s hard for us, it’s harder for them.” 

“Missing the point,” Karen mutters, more to herself. True panic is starting to set in now; she’d assumed Frank would hide them in plain sight, or something like that. She had been almost sure that there would be other people nearby, or at least somewhere. The idea of a week - or possibly more - with Frank Castle, uninterrupted, with no one else, sets her teeth on edge. 

“Whoa, Kar, you don’t have to carry that much,” he protests, when she hauls a large bag over her back. The weight and density of it makes her think ammo, for large, large guns. She glares at him flatly, until he shuts up. When the van is emptied, he shuts it and locks it, giving her a little nod. Karen nods back, and when they start through the narrow trees that disappear through the larger woods, she glances back helplessly at her last moments of civilization. 

There’s no room for talking on the hike; Karen is so out of breath she couldn’t chew Frank out even if she had wanted to. She has to give Frank credit for that at least; he knows how to avoid an ambush. Three miles, carrying gear, hiking across the hills on what she can only label as deer trails, is so incredibly taxing she can hardly keep up with Frank, though she knows that he’s slowing his pace. 

“What?” she demands, when he stops and turns to look at her. She’s desperate to lean over and dry heave. There’s a stitch in her side that is crippling her every other step, and she’s long given up trying at appear breezy and carefree like camping adverts always insist.

“I can take that stuff,” he insists, gesturing to the bags and Karen glares.

“I can do it.” 

“I’d like to make it there before dusk, ma’am,” he says, in a way that is not meant to be patronizing yet somehow falls short of chivalrous. Karen shrugs off the bag and shoves it at him irritably. Frank pulls it on like it’s nothing more than an empty plastic bag, apparently unbothered by the fact that he has to be carrying Karen’s body weight in gear. 

“It’s too heavy.” Karen trails after him as they start up again, and without her burden, it’s significantly easier to move. 

“Carried heavier,” Frank tells her, in the way that warns her not to say another word. Karen is fast becoming all too familiar with that tone. She falls silently, just focusing on trying to glare a hole into the back of his skull. They round a curve before Frank surprises her with another answer. “Who do you think had to carry Curtis back?” 

“I had no idea,” Karen mutters, because she truly didn’t. She knows that is just another blame that Frank takes onto his shoulders, carries to close to his fragile heart, but she’d never imagined that he’d borne more than just guilt that day. 

“Yeah, he told me that I must’ve been getting out of shape, cause he was lighter a leg and I still broke a sweat.” 

“Well." Karen isn’t sure what to say to that. She knows she doesn’t need to respond; military humor is dark and dire, but she wants Frank to know that she’s heard him. That she understands a part of him, even if only a little. But then the moments passed for her to do so, and they lapse back into silence, continuing their trek. 

It is nearly dusk when they finally arrive, and Karen half believes that she’ll be able to fall asleep there on the ground she’s so exhausted. Even in her haze, she realizes the beauty of what they have here. All around them stand tall, proud old trees, and over half their campsite opens up to a glorious lake, shining blue waters glinting temptingly. Karen almost wants to dive in. 

Frank drops their gear before he disappears off into the woods with nothing more than a whisper of boots in the grass. Karen wonders if he’s setting a parameter, checking to see if anyone has gotten there before them. She forces her weary body to crouch down by the bags so that she can get things ready for Frank’s return like she’s half useful. Guns out, lined up. Ammo that corresponds. Tent with the back to the lake, front to the path that’s led them here. She’s just struggling to try to attach the poles when Frank shows up again. Karen notices him midway through a cursing spree, leaning against the tree and grinning. For once, his dark eyes are alight with something that seems like true, pure humor. 

“Don’t stop on my account. ma’am. You’ve almost completed step one of a hundred,” he drawls easily. 

“Rude,” Karen retorts, throwing the poles down. “I told you I’ve never done this before.” 

“Sleeping bags are in that one.” he points to a bag. “I think you said you had previous experience there?” 

“Very funny.” Karen gives him the middle finger while he laughs. She can only groan in frustration when she turns around from unrolling two similar sleeping bags to find that the frame of the tent is complete and Frank is working to pull on the coverings. 

“What?” he asks innocently. 

“What else can I be doing then that I won’t be shit at?” Karen grumbles and he laughs, a deep, full-hearted laugh. 

“Ah, c’mon, it’s hard for people that have done it before too. I’m just a master, that’s all.” 

“Well, I can master firewood or something,” Karen remarks, looking around for sticks and branches. 

“Listen, I’ll set up the tent and then you can make sure we’ve got everything we need inside, alright?” Frank offers and Karen nods before the full weight of his words sink in. Tent, singular. They only have one tent. And not an overly large one at that. 

It makes sense, logically. If she was in her own tent, there would be more to cover, more to watch. One tent is easier to defend and this way they each know the other is safe. She knows she should feel protected and grateful, but the idea of falling asleep and waking up next to Frank Castle is making her head spin. The reality of them, sleeping together, had not once occurred to her on the drive. She tries to give him a smile, pretending nothing is amiss. 

To say that she doesn’t want to be near Frank is in its essence, wrong. She does. She has never felt as safe as when she had a gun pressed to her head by Frank, but the price to pay for him is steep. She wants something, something desperate she can’t even name, but there is no way for her to cross the void and see if, by some miracle, Frank would want it back. So she gathers sticks and unpacks bags and tries to plan how she will stay calm with a week of Frank. 

“Should I make something to eat?” Karen asks, trying to be helpful, when Frank is sparking a fire.

“Yeah, we’ll do that in a minute,” he assures her. “First though I want you to go through my guns and stuff. You like one, it’s yours.” 

“I have a gun,” Karen reminds him, a little stubbornly. 

“That .38?” there’s a hint of a smile that lingers around Frank’s mouth. “Yeah, I know you got that ma’am. Gotta have a back up though, don’t you?” 

“I-- oh, fine,” Karen huffs, opening up the duffle bag that contains more of the weapons Frank has brought. Shot guns and high power riffles sit amongst grenades and what she’s nearly sure is a land mine. She digs until she can find the handguns and pulls them out to examine them. 

“You’ll like that one,” Frank comments, when she holds up a little 9mm Parabellum. “Handles like yours, easy to use.” 

“Any other ideas?” Karen asks, as she tucks the gun into the small of her back. “Gonna teach me how to set boobytraps and whatnot?” 

“Surprised you don’t already know,” he answers and for a second, Karen thinks of a boy with an overly bright smile and a gap filled smile.

“I know how to rig a bucket up over a door,” she finds herself admitting and Frank glances up in surprise. Smoke is starting to billow from the pile of sticks at his feet, but that doesn’t hold his attention. Rather, he keeps his dark eyes trained on her. 

“Yeah? Where’d you learn that?” 

“Brother,” Karen says shortly, uncomfortable with even that admission. For a moment, Frank looks like he’ll press it. Then he’s quiet, nurturing the flames so that they begin to grow. 

“Got some food if you’re hungry,” he tells her carefully, once the fire has caught and starts casting steady heat. Karen finds the neatly organized cooler, with food already prepared. Frank does veggies and some meat for both of them, and even shows her how he makes coffee over the fire. Karen settles for tea since she actually wants to sleep, and sits across from him, eating silently. 

“Where did you learn to camp?” She finds herself asking suddenly, when they’re finished eating and Frank is compiling a stack of dishes to be washed. She really does dread the answer, fearful that her very presence here is clashing with Maria’s memory, but there’s so little she knows about Frank, and she deserves to know this at the very least. 

“Wish I learned as a kid,” he remarks easily, emptying the last dregs of his coffee onto the ground. “Would’ve made my first weeks in the Marine’s easier. Their favorite thing was to take you into the woods with a blanket and a compass and drop you off. You made it back in time for breakfast in a couple days, you could count yourself lucky.” 

“Steep learning curve,” Karen responds, and he laughs, though this one has absolutely no humor in it. 

“Yeah, especially for me and Billy. City boys, hardly left it a day in our lives. Think we nearly killed ourselves on poisonous berries about half a dozen times.”

“Well, you’d do better than me.” Karen shivers as the cold night air begins to invade. She doesn’t even realize that Frank has noticed, until he tosses her a soft blanket. 

“Go put on something warmer,” he urges, avoiding her eyes as he goes to prod at the fire. “Don’t need you getting cold.” 

“After this are we having s’mores?” Karen is only partly joking as she rises and the look on Frank’s face becomes one of almost amusement, with just a bit of sadness coloring him darker. 

“Lisa loved s’mores,” he muttered quietly. “Loved those things. Always had to have them if we were going to have a fire.” 

“Did she like them burnt?” Karen’s fingers clutch the edge of her blanket, trying to keep her voice steady. 

“No, that was Frankie,” Frank explains, staring into the fire. It reflects back in his eyes and Karen wishes he would look up at her. “Always burned the crap out of them. Maria told him one day he was going to to eat something still on fire. Lisa liked hers just a little golden. I was the only one who could make them right, she always said.” 

“That’s the best way to do it,” Karen says softly, and Frank gives a little nod, still lost in the fire. Karen allows herself to trail her fingers over his shoulder when she walks past him to the tent. 

Inside, their gear is still thrown on the ground. Karen opens her bag and pulls on the sweatshirt and leggings that have been packed away for her, setting aside her clothes for later. She does her best to organize them neatly on one side, given Frank’s side a wide berth. When she’s properly attired, she looks around curiously for sleeping bags. There’s one bulky bag and she opens it tentatively, until she can confirm it contains two sleeping pads. She carries them out with a sense of relief that she won’t spend a week on the hard ground. 

“Oh, hey, need help getting those set up?” Frank asks, when she emerges with them. 

“Yeah, I know they inflate but how?” Karen asks, looking over the contraptions curiously. Frank takes them from her, his fingers brushing over hers for a long moment before he explains how they blow them up. Karen chuckles when he drops into educational mode, but it makes her heart sting, just a little. He must have been such a good dad. She wonders when her heart will stop breaking for him. 

“That’ll do it,” he proclaims, when both mattresses are inflated to a reasonable firmness. “Think that’ll be fine?” 

“I figured we’d be in hammocks, so anything beyond is a treat.” Karen gives him her brightest smile and he rubs the back of his head, as though amused. 

“Those are for tomorrow,” he declares and Karen isn’t sure if he’s teasing or not so all she can do is follow him into the tent. She lays her mattress down and goes to make sure everything is in it’s place. When she straightens up, her stomach falls out of her body. 

“What, uh—“ she stammers when she sees that Frank has laid his mattress directly beside hers, close enough that if Karen rolls the wrong way in her sleep, she may end up in his lap. 

“It gets cold at night here ma’am,” he says, like it should be obvious and Karen is left floundering. She takes her toiletries and flees into the dark night of the forest away from him. 

“Breathe, breathe, breathe,” she reminds herself, as she brushes her teeth and tries to avoiding thinking about a night beside Frank. Several nights beside Frank. Like it’s nothing. Like he’s just a cousin or a friend. That’s how she has to think about it. But memories of her family makes Karen want to vomit all over again, so she finishes gagging behind a tree, then goes back to the tent. 

Frank has rigged a lantern to hang from the ceiling so that they can see even as the fire outside dies to embers. Karen kneels to put her things away, sneaking fugitive glances at the setup of the tent. In a different life, if they weren’t Frank and Karen and this wasn’t their thing, she’d be amused and shocked to see the guns that hang within reach or are partially covered. But instead all she can think about is two sleeping bags, one purple and one red, side by side. It’s enough to make her want to pass out. 

“Your stuff is here,” Frank is explaining where he’s put her guns, but Karen operates on autopilot. Two sleeping bags. Side by side. What happens if he hears her talk in her sleep? Or worse, a nightmare? What if he hears the things that lurk in her mind, and only come out in the dark? 

But surely Frank has those monsters as well. Demons whose claws are stuck so deeply in him that it’s impossible not to be torn to shreds. For every nightmare that plagues Karen Page, there must be a matching hurt written large across Frank Castle’s psyche. Perhaps, she thinks with the darkest of humors, that’s why they seem to not judge the other. 

She crawls into the purple sleeping bag, hyper aware of every movement of both her and Frank. He at least seems to be at ease, doing a once over of his guns before getting his own items. When he straightens up and turns to her, Karen grips the top of her sleeping bag tightly. He gives her a brief thumbs up, which she returns, then disappears off into the night. She closes her eyes and wills herself to fall asleep before he comes back.

Frank must fall for her ruse because when he comes back in, he is careful to be quiet. He puts things away then turns the lantern off. She hears the rustling of him crawling into his own sleeping bag, then the sound of him slowing his breath until it begins to even out. As he drifts off into sleep, Karen takes a deep breath and thinks that it’s only one week. One week couldn’t possibly be that bad. 

That night she dreams about jail, and the man that had been sent to kill her. She dreams about fingers around her neck, only this time she does not get herself free. She dreams that she is dying, gasping for air, and when she finally manages to wrench herself from the tendrils of her nightmare, it is her sweatshirt that is twisted around her neck, choking off her air all the same. She yanks it off, chest heaving, before she remembers where she is. 

Tent. 

Camping. 

**Frank**. 

She immediately looks to her left, to Frank, anticipating having woken him or otherwise concerned him so. Instead, his back is to her, his face hidden in the dark by the lip of his sleeping bag. Karen tries to soothe herself, scooting back down into her sleeping bag as quietly as she can. He isn’t awake. He didn’t even hear. Everything is fine. Everything is alright. But her sleep after that is fitful, and when the first rays of dawn glimmer through the thin sheet of the tent, Karen rises. 

She treks back into the woods, wondering when she’ll have to go to the bathroom and how that will manage to work. She wonders if there are bears in these woods, or other large animals. But mostly she wonders what the hell her and Frank are going to do all day, with no technology to distract them. She thinks, wryly, as she finishes brushing her teeth, that this is how friendships are made or broken. 

But she's not a blushing fifteen year old with a crush. So she squares her shoulders and walks back to camp, storing her things away neatly before reaching up to braid her hair. She is glad she thought to grab her sweatshirt before exiting the tent; the morning air is chilly and she doesn't want to risk changing in the tent and having Frank wake up. 

"Mornin' Karen." 

A futile worry. She finishes off the braid and ties the end, mustering up a little smile for him. 

"Good morning." how does he look so good in the weak light? His beard looks like it's coming in; he scratches it idly and blinks. He has a gun in hand and one in his waistband; he nods in approval at the gun she carries. 

"Sleep okay?" he asks and for a moment, she thinks to tell him about her nightmare, to blurt out that sleeping next to him awakens something in her that is terrifying. 

"Yeah," she answers instead, "but I should change." 

"Oh, yeah." he moves aside to let her sneak past him into the tent. She changes quickly, folding her clothes and noting with amusement that the ratio of guns to everything else is scary or reassuring, depending on how she looks at it. 

"So, now what?" she asks, upon her entrance back into the wilderness. "What do we do all day out here?" 

"Well." Frank is sitting on a stump, bundling a couple dry leaves and twigs together. "I'll start a fire so we can heat up breakfast. Then you have your choice of reading, fishing, or whittling." 

"Whittling." she gives him a look of disbelief but he holds up a rough piece of wood and a knife. "How are we going to fish without a boat?" 

"There's one we can use at a dock about a mile away," he explains and she narrows her eyes, just slightly.

"Are we going to steal it?" 

"Nah." he places the firestarter just so amidst the stacked logs. When he doesn't say much else, Karen gently teases, 

"And you're not worried about someone else using it to sneak up on us because...." 

"Why don't you leave the worrying to me, huh?" the fire roars to life in front of her and she takes a step towards it, glad for the warmth. He smiles at her, the sort of smile that breaks her heart with just how normal it is. The kind of smile if they were just some couple, out in the woods for a romantic weekend of camping, and she was the clueless city girl and he the hardy woodsy boyfriend and everything was bliss and happiness. 

Wistful thinking. 

Breakfast consists of surprisingly good food, considering Frank makes it over the fire. Sausage and veggies in foil, eaten and discarded in a barrel he rehangs high out of reach of any animals. Then they trek to the lake and the boat, in total silence. Frank has a fishing pole over one shoulder and a gun over the other, which makes her sigh. 

The boat is an actual wooden rowboat, which makes her smile and bite back a laugh. It's like something out of romantic comedy, except that doesn't exist for them. They clamber in and Frank rows them out, the paddles quietly splashing against the water. When they get to the center, Frank hands her a fishing pole. 

"What, no live worms?" she teases, noting the rubbery decoy on the hook. 

"You old school like that?" he responds, getting his own rod. 

"I'm new school," she corrects, "since I've never fished before." 

"Never?" he looks at her in surprise. "Not even as a kid?"

"No, it wasn't really my parents' style," she answers before she can stop herself. She feels Frank go still next her and tries to busy herself with the rod even though there's not much to be done with it. After she doesn't extrapolate, he eventually goes back to his own work and eventually she hears the plop of his bobber in the water. 

She isn't sure why being out here makes her talk about who she was in a past life. Maybe the open air reminds her for Vermont. Maybe the soft whisper of the wind in the trees brings her back to her childhood in a large backyard. Maybe the smell of the lake and the earth grounds her into those memories, of a boy and a family before it all went so badly wrong. 

She peeks at Frank, noticing how relaxed he seems. She thinks about a city boy in the middle of nowhere, learning on the fly how to do this. When did he become comfortable with open sky and space, not skyscrapers and pavement? She's forgotten what it's like, in the sunshine and the silence. Tried to fill it up with the city, to push out what she once knew so well. 

They sit in silence for a long while, water occasionally splashing as they moved around their rods. Karen watches Frank, trying to mimic what he does. The posture and how he holds it, occasionally giving it a little wiggle here or there, but never at complete ease. She watches him and sees the way that his eyes never stop darting to the trees and shores around them. 

"Oh," she gasps, when her line gives a little tug. "What the -- Frank!" 

"Don't let go!" he tells her, as her line jerks several times in rapid succession. She gives him a look of disbelief as he comes behind her, wrapping his arms around hers. "Reel in, gently." 

"Gently," she echoes, as the line gives a tug again. It's stronger than she would guessed and she feels a little thrill. Maybe it'll be a huge fish, a monster. She reels it in slowly, as Frank guides her from behind, telling her when to lay off and when to reel in more. She tries to peek over the edge to see the fish, but the water is too dark. Until Frank leans over, grabs the line, and pulls it out into the sunlight. 

"Fuck," he says in dumbfounded shock and then immediately starts laughing. Karen stares in astonishment at the wiggling fish on the hook, no more than a few inches long. 

"I thought it would be bigger," she admits, disappointed. 

"He's a fighter, that's for sure," Frank tells her, going to get a tool. Carefully, he holds the fish tight and removes the hook. Then he offers her the fish. "Want to touch it before we let it go?" 

"I've touched a fish before," she tells him, running a finger along the smooth scales. Frank chuckles and then leans over the side, holding the fish a few inches below the surface until it gives a wiggle and he releases it, darting down back to the depths. 

"And here I thought you'd caught our lunch," Frank remarks teasingly and she gives him an affronted look as he re-baits her hook. 

"I'm sorry, have you caught anything?" 

"Fair enough." he gestures for her to cast again so she does and he goes back to his spot, picking up his own rod and casting it again. 

Over the course of the afternoon, they do eventually catch enough fish to make a meal out of. Karen claims she catches the biggest one and Frank laughingly agrees. He tells her that the first time Lisa ever caught a fish, she dropped the reel in the water from surprise. Karen smiles at the thought of it, a flustered little girl and an amused Frank watching a pink reel sink to the bottom of the lake. 

They take the fish back to camp and Frank teases her about getting her hands dirty so she rolls up her sleeves and takes the knife from him, learning to gut and scale her first fish under his guidance. Then Frank breads them and goes to fry them as she watches, impressed at how easily he does it. 

She's pleasantly surprised at how good it is, so hot it burns her fingers and tongue as she eats. It's better than what she'd make in her own apartment and Frank does it over a campfire. She eats two, three, four of them until she's bursting. She leans back and watches the afternoon sun drift towards the horizon. 

"Maybe we should stay out here forever." her eyes drift shut. She can't remember the last time she couldn't hear the screech of cars and horns, sirens and yelling, and every now and then, the ominous bang. Here, it is only bird song and the wind in the tree tops and the gentle crackling of the fire. 

"Didn't figure you'd be one for the country." Frank is looking at her sideways, a little smile on his face. 

"City life is fun, but sometimes I do miss silence." she thinks about a dead Main Street, completely empty at two in the morning, standing in the middle of an intersection, staring out, revolving in place, trying to pick a direction to go. 

"You've never told me about your hometown," Frank mentions carefully and it takes all of Karen's patience and grace not to get up and start running. 

"Not much to tell." she clasps his hands in her lap so he can't see that they shake. "Mom, dad, brother. Small family." 

"Small town," he guesses and she nods. "Still in New York or somewhere else?" 

"Vermont." that's all she allows. Doesn't say the name, that hurts too much, and doesn't tell him anything else. Frank watches her in silence, then gets up, going to one of the many packs near the tent. He opens it and pulls out a bottle of dark liquor, coming to sit down near her, but not too far away. He drinks directly from the bottle, then hands it to her without looking. She takes it, slowly. 

"You know something." he settles himself in the dirt, like he's making himself comfortable. "You know more about me than anyone else living. Except Curtis, maybe." 

"Is that a good thing?" she mutters, taking a swig and almost choking on it. Gasoline would go down smoother. 

"Ain't a thing, just a statement." he looks like he's brooding. "I've been so caught up in my shit, I never asked you about yours." 

"I don't have shit." she doesn't think about the feel of a gun in her hand. "I'm just Karen Page." 

"Alright then, tell me why a .38." he takes the bottle back from her and takes another long pull; she stares at him in shock, wondering how the hell he can drink that. It's not until he glances at her does she realize she's staring and so she takes the bottle, trying to figure out how to drink it without actually tasting it. 

"It was the first gun I ever shot." it's the truth, the actual truth, and she's a bit surprised to hear it come out her mouth. She takes a drink and actually does splutter. "What the hell is this, by the way?" 

"It's better if you don't know," he tells her, taking the bottle back. "How old?" 

"Seven." she's kept this story so close her for so long, telling Frank is like tugging on one string and feeling her whole heart unravel. "My grandpa's. He was an old sheriff, it was his work piece. He let me shoot it once, at a target in the backyard." 

"Sentimentality." Frank nods along. 

"More than that." sentimentality didn't get her too far in life. "Big. Not too big. You told me it shows thought." 

"I did." he glances at her. "I knew there was more to you, Karen Page. More than meets the eye." 

"No, there's really not," she tries to demur but Frank simply passes the bottle back and waits until she's drank to ask, 

"And what kind of person tries to make a friend out of a monster like me?" 

"You are not a monster," she says automatically and he waits, waits, waits until she gives a little wince and admits, "I.... I knew there was more to you. You weren't crazy, you weren't a terrorist, you were a good person that something awful had happened to." 

"Is that what you are?" his voice is quiet, soft. "A good person that something awful happened to?" 

"I've never had any illusions I'm a good person." her voice is so soft, she can barely hear it. 

"What makes you think you aren't?" his voice matches her tone and she's grateful that he's letting it seem like she's speaking to the twilight gloom, sharing secrets to the trees and birds. 

"I've done things." _secrets, secrets, secrets._ "I've.... I've brought things down on people, people I loved, people who didn't deserve it." 

"Now you sound like me, ma'am," he tells her quietly. 

"Why do you think I understood?" she searches his face, wondering if he gets her now. Knows why she was so driven to get to the bottom of what happened to his family. 

"Karen...." he scoots closer to her and she wants to reach out to him, wants to wrap her arms around him and see if he'll let her distract them from this line of thinking. He stops, close enough where he can take her hand, but not any more. "You can trust me." 

"I know," she says miserably, "it's me I can't trust." 

"I'm not going to ask you to tell me something you don't want to." he doesn't speak again until the bottle has passed back and forth between them several times in silence. "You've given me that grace enough." 

"I know." she squeezes her eyes shut. She doesn't want to cry in front of him, not now. She wishes she could just begin, just start talking and let it all come out, but she can't. Years of silence isn't undone by bad whiskey and the tender brown eyes of Frank Castle in the middle of nowhere. 

"Alright." he nudges her side with the bottle and she takes it. Suddenly, the taste doesn't seem so bad. They sit, watching the sun go down, and Karen savors the quiet for the fact that it gives her the space to gather her courage and then speak. 

"Kevin." she wants to sob, but she's stronger now. "His name was Kevin. He was only 15 months younger than me." 

"Lisa and Frankie were 19 and a half, to the day." he reveals. "Thought I was going mad, two that close. They'd be thick as thieves one minute, then tearing each other apart the next." 

"Yeah, well, when you're that close, all you can do is fight and make up. It was only us, in a farmhouse in the country." she can still picture him, clear as day. One dimple in his cheek, blue eyes the exact same shade as hers, and fine blond hair that was curly. Her curls grew out by the time she left toddler-hood. Kevin's never did. 

"Family farm?" Frank is doing an excellent job of making it appear as though he's completely unbothered, like this conversation isn't deeply personal. 

"Three generations." she tips her head back, looking at the stars beginning to peek out among the branches. "There was no one, after.... It's going to ruin, but I'm glad." 

"No chance you'd go back then." Frank sounds a tiny bit strangled. 

"Only to burn the fucker down." she wishes she had a cigarette or something, but the bottle will have to suffice. 

"Karen," Frank says softly and it's only then that she realizes she's been silent for a long time, the bottle idly swinging from her fingertips. She looks up at him, wide eyed, and his fingers gently curl over hers. "Will you please tell me what happened?”

There is a moment in time where Karen Page remains Karen Page. She keeps herself quiet, she keeps everything buttoned up, she doesn’t say a damn word. But then Frank’s hand finds hers, strong and warm and rough and the scared little girl deep inside her breaks apart and she cannot stop the torrent of words that come out of her. For so long, she’s needed someone to just listen to this, to be on her side. And what better person than Frank? 

"My dad, he.... He.... He might've been a good father, once. I don't know. Or at least, I don't remember it, so it would've been when I was really young. By the time I was old enough to start realizing how bad he was, he was pretty far gone. Always drinking. But mom said that he wasn't always that way. 

"They got married when he was 23 and she was 17. He was from out of town and fell head over heels with her, I guess. They had me before their first wedding anniversary and Kevin just after their second anniversary. My mom's parents had the farm, so the first couple years were okay. But then dad got sick of small town life or something like that, so he started to drink. 

"I was maybe five or six when the abuse started? Small shit. Push mom into a doorway or against a counter. She could blame the bruises on farm work. And she always sent us over to my grandparents, but we saw what happened. My grandma pretended it was all sunshine and rainbows. I just think she didn't want to picture her daughter getting battered over and over again."

"Is that why you hid?" Frank asks, when she takes a deep, shuddering breath. For a second she has no idea what he means, then remembers. Broom closet. Gingersnaps. A rocketship, blasting off, destroying her entire small town and her father with it. 

"Yes." she isn't crying, not yet, but she can feel the tears welling. "Kevin always went outside. But I stayed inside. In case she needed me." 

"All heart," he says softly and she can't manage a smile, but she does squeeze his hand before she resumes her story. 

"It got worse eventually, to the point where she couldn't hide it. So she always stayed home. She'd send us to the store with the grocery list. We'd walk there with a little red wagon and then walk it all home. Or grandma would take us. I started driving when I was maybe 11? I was so fucking sick of walking that dirt road. 

"I did fine in school. Kevin didn't. He was a wild child. Hellion. Teachers couldn't control him, so they'd call home and tell my dad or my grandpa that he was causing problems. Dad would say he was going to beat him, but he's have to catch him.... And Kevin was fast. Faster than anyone I have ever met." she thinks about him, blue eyes flashing under his messy, curly blond hair, darting and weaving, always just out of reach. 

"He could've gone to school as a track star. He would have made it too. But he always said that he was going to take over the farm, get bigger than dad, kick him off, and make sure that mom had a place to feel safe again. I was the one who wanted to escape and go. I was the one who wanted to put that fucking place in the rearview mirror and never see it again. 

"I had a plan. I had a really good plan. And then, my junior year, it all sort of.... Fell apart. My mom got sick. And you'd think my dad would maybe back off. Take it easy. But...." she can still see him in her mind's eye, those same blue eyes she carries, coming at her with such rage and anger. She can still feel his blows and she flinches, even now, even when she's safe and far, far out of reach. 

"Kar...." Frank gives her a squeeze and she tries for a watery smile, to show him that it's okay. She's okay, she's a big girl. She can take a hit. But now that she's started, she can't stop. It feels good to share, to release everything that she's hidden. And besides, she hasn't even shared her biggest secret yet. 

"Kevin started taking the beatings. Trying to protect me." the memory makes it hard to breathe. "And my dad would just try to turn him black and blue but Kevin learned to hit back and that was the end of that. It was all over for my dad. And I had this hope, you know, like maybe, just maybe, it's all going to work out. Except that place is fucking cursed and I never should have thought anything good was going to happen there.

"Mom died first." it still stuns her, how easy she can say it. But by now, Karen Page has been a motherless girl for a long time. "And then grandma. I think the grief was too much. And grandpa was never very old and sprightly. He fell when trying to fix a hole in the roof of a bin. He could've crawled and gotten help but I think.... I think he didn't want to bother staying here." three funerals in as many months. She'd never grieved for them. It had always been like a dream, or a nightmare with what came next. 

"So then we were on our own. With dad. Grandpa had technically left the farm to Kevin, but he wasn't 18 yet. So dad decided that he was going to take it over. And then he said he was going to kick us out, told us to leave. I was happy - more than happy - to never see that place again. But it was where we'd buried mom. And Kevin said he was going to fight like hell. And he did. 

"Dad got drunk one night. He came back to the house and found out Kevin had changed the locks on him. And so he's yelling and cursing and trying to kick the damn door in, so Kevin comes out and tells him to fuck off and they're in the driveway, screaming, and I'm standing on the porch watching, thinking that one of them is going to get hurt, when dad pulls out grandpa's old pistol and points it right at Kevin's head. 

"He tells him to do it. Pull the trigger, kill his own kid. He would've done it too. But then Kevin went for his truck and said he was going to go get the sheriff and have dad arrested. He's not even out of the driveway when dad comes hauling ass behind him. So I grab the work truck, chasing both of them, terrified that I'll crash too. And then I come around a bend and I see it." she closes her eyes and the picture blossoms in front of her, the smell of gasoline and oil fills her nostrils, her heart starts to pound all over again. 

"Dad had t-boned Kevin. He was in the ditch, dad was on the road.... I checked Kevin's truck first and he.... He...." she takes a deep shuddering breath and carries on, knowing that Frank will understand. "So I went to my dad's truck. He was sitting there, bleeding from the head.... He didn't even understand what he'd done. And I was so mad, I couldn't even think straight, not after....

"And the gun. The gun was just sitting there in the passenger seat, so I.... I reached over there. I picked it up, I put it under his chin, I made him hold it. I told him that this was it. He'd killed my mom. My grandparents. And now the only person who ever mattered to me. He told me what a fuck-up I was. How I was worthless, I'd never make it out of this city, I wasn't shit. So.... I pulled the trigger. And I walked away." 

Silently, she stares at Frank, waiting for a reaction. She knows what she'd get from Matt or Foggy. Horror, unbridled and unrestrained horror. Matt would think her a murderer. Foggy would think she has some sort of curse. And maybe she does. And maybe she is a murderer. But she wouldn't change a single thing. 

She thinks that Frank might nod or shake his head or shrug or do something, but she doesn't ever imagine that he will lean forward, kiss her forehead, and then press his forehead there for a long moment, his eyes shut. And after a minute, Karen feels herself finally surrender and she cries, tears flowing down her cheeks, unchecked. As they fall off her chin, she feels the rough skin of Frank's hands gently brushing them away. 

"The cops called it murder suicide." she has to get the words out. She has to finish this. And then, somehow, she knows she'll be free. "They gave me their condolences. I said thank you and ignored the way everyone looked at me, the little girl who lost her entire family the summer she turned 18. I took my brother's ashes and spread them off the roof of the farmhouse, so that he could spend forever there. And I took my father's ashes and threw them as far as I could into the back corn field and then I got in the car and I drove until I hit New York City." 

"Karen...." when she opens her eyes, Frank's big brown eyes are full of tender compassion and deep, deep understanding. And then she leans forward and he catches her and she feels free and so tired and mostly, very drunk. 

He doesn't say much for the rest of the week. But that, oddly, provides her even more relief. Nothing has changed. He still accepts her, just the way he is. And they are still them - admittedly just out in the middle of nowhere, fishing and camping and sitting, in silence. But sometimes, at night, he will reach over and take her hand. And it feels like everything is going to be okay. 

Frank deems it safe enough to return after a few days. Karen packs up the campsite, a little sad. Going back to the real world is necessary. And she does it, lighter and happier. But this place has become something like safety for her. Or maybe it's just Frank that does that. Either way. 

"Hey," he says, as she finally gets the last bag shoved into the back of the van. She turns to him, sweating. He reaches out - slowly, carefully, like he knows she spooks so easily - and touches her face. "I know, Karen. I know." 

And she knows. He knows her. He sees her. He understands her. And this, the streak of mercilessness, it runs through both of them. They are what they have been made. They are forged, through their tragedy, in a way that binds them together. So she winds her arms around his neck and he pulls her close and she knows. 

She's all heart. And her heart is all his. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay two massive novels back to back i promise next week won't be a wall of text 
> 
> reviews are love


	9. Young and Menace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We've gone way too fast for way too long
> 
> And we were never supposed to make it half this far
> 
> And I lived so much life, lived so much life
> 
> I think that God is gonna have to kill me twice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> angst? more angst? who would've guessed.

The laughter that bubbles up onto Karen Page's lips has to fight its way through blood to do so. It's a spluttering sort of laughter, the kind that hurts more than anything. It's over nothing at all. There's nothing amusing about their current situation. But Karen laughs all the same, because her own morality suddenly seems rather funny. 

"Karen fucking Page," Frank mutters from behind her and she suddenly wishes she could turn her head and look at him. See him. Touch him, hold him, kiss him. Anything. 

"Frank fucking Castle," she responds and it occurs to her that she doesn't know his middle name. Does he have one? 

"I'm sorry," he tells her tiredly, an apology he doesn't need to make. 

"I dragged you into this." Karen spits a wad of blood onto the floor and she feels Frank winch behind her. 

"Yeah, but I should've seen this shit coming." 

"You're not a prophet Frank, you can't see everything," Karen argues and for a moment they lapse into silence. Thinking about the last time he blamed himself for not seeing something coming. God, that hospital room seems ages and ages ago. 

"Any ideas?" he asks her then but without a note of hope. The first several hours of this situation had been the two of them trying to figure out how to get the hell out of this, but it seems impossible. 

Hands bound in wire, rough and tight. Every time Karen shifts, it cuts deeper into her wrists. Already, the blood slides down her fingertips and onto the floor in sluggish drips. Ankles bound in the same manner. Then the chains that anchor her to the chair, and more chains to keep the chair to the floor. Back to back with Frank. 

And her head aches from the beating they'd taken. Finn Cooley's men had ambushed them and it had been vicious. She's taken beatings before, she's seen how the IRA operates, but this is something else entirely. Even Frank - her Frank, the Punisher - had been beaten bloody. And now here they sit, one of Cooley's notorious bombs counting down across from them, a grim hourglass of how long they have to live. 

"Tell me a story," she requests instead of telling him that she too is hopeless. 

"You're the story writer," he grumbles, deflecting the question. "You tell me one." 

"I've told you lots," she retorts, thinking of them all. He knows all about her past. Kevin, her father, her mother, everything. He's read the stories she's written for the paper, the stories she's chased and hasn't been able to figure out, the stories of her hopes and dreams and fears and wants. He knows it all. She wants to know him. 

"What do you want to know?" he sounds tired. She wonders when he last looked at the little timer on the bomb. Does he watch the numbers tick down? Or does he not look at all? 

"Just a story." 

"Once upon a time, there was a monster. A big, ugly, scary motherfucker of a monster. He stole a beautiful princess and hid her away in a castle. But because she was a pain in the ass kind of princess, she kept trying to escape and eventually the big, ugly, scary monster decided that she wasn't just beautiful, she was smart and kind and so he decided to teach her all the skills of how to live in the world." 

"Clearly she was shit at them," Karen mutters, smiling though it hurts her split lip. 

"Yeah, well maybe the monster was a shit teacher. Doesn't matter. They tried to make the world a better place and then they rode off into the sunset and lived happily ever after. That the kind of story you want to hear, Karen?" 

"I never expected a happy ending," she sighs, "just a soft one might've been nice."

"I told you to get away from me," Frank's voice shakes as he admits this to her. "I told you to get out, get away from this shit." 

"This is my shit." Karen wants to gesture broadly at the warehouse where she'd tracked the mob activity to, the mob that was funding and supplying white nationalists on the streets of New York to spread chaos and fear. She'd dove in head first and Frank had dove after her, and now they're going to die. 

"Yeah, well, our shit goes together," he grumbles, in that Frank sort of way that makes her realize that they are like two pieces of the puzzle, fitted together and bonded as one for better or worse. She glances at the timer again, without wanting to do it. She doesn't want to know how much longer they have, how quickly it's all going to end for them. 

"I'm sorry," she whispers, when she sees just how few precious moments they have left. "Frank, I'm so, so, sorry." 

"Don't be," he replies softly. "This ain't your fault." 

"It is, it all is. It's always my fault. Too stubborn to know when to let go, right?" 

"You didn't let go of me. And I didn't hate that," he admits and that's the moment that breaks her resolve. Tears down her face, slow and sure. They cut through the grime and dried blood and sting as they slid into the cuts.

"I didn't need a happy ending," she repeats, brokenly. "I would have settled for a sad one, just not this." 

"I love you." the words startle her, the way they come from Frank's mouth so smoothly. She jerks upright and has to bite down her shriek of pain as the bonds cut deeper into her wrist. 

"Frank," she whispers back, because that seems like the only thing she can or should say. "Oh, Frank." 

"I love you." 

"I love you too." 

She hopes that's enough. She hopes it's more than enough for them, but she understands if it isn't. This is the only moment they have left, the last chance for anything with either of them, so she takes a deep breath and rests the back of her head against his. She lets herself feel the yawning ache inside her chest. 

"I love you Karen." 

"I love you Frank." 

It has to be enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter next week!!


	10. Bishops Knife Trick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The glow of the cities below lead us back
> 
> To the places that we never should have left 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter. and my fav. enjoy.

Trembling hands. The biggest weakness a man like him could have. _(one shot, one kill.)_

A flimsy door in front of him, the kind that is so hard to kick down. Might as well be steel with a bomb behind it. _(hell no, come on!)_

Flowers gripped tightly, already starting to wilt. He'd bought them from the man on the street in some sort of desperate bid for normalcy. _(i'm a old fashioned kinda guy.)_

Should he knock? Should he break the door down? Should he let himself in? Or should he leave the flowers on the door and disappear, again? _(so walk away. go.)_

He wonders what she's doing inside. Making dinner, likely. A laptop open on the counter, a cellphone off to the side, and a mountain of paper, of research, scattered around. And her in the middle of it, Karen. _(just really good to see you.)_

He knocks. It takes a long time, but he hears her moving around inside - the scrape of a chair against the floor, the fumble of the lock, and then she stands before him, all blue eyes and messy hair, startled and surprised and maybe a little bit angry. _(hey, when am I gonna see you? you want to? it'd mean you're still alive.)_

She doesn't say a word. She just leaves the door open for him to walk in and he does. _(you’re still all heart huh?)_

Silence. She doesn't say a word, but instead stands and watches him. Her blue eyes, so quick and clever, now locked onto him, waiting for him to say anything at all, but he can't speak. He can only stare at her in amazement. _(why am I here? why did you ask me to stay?)_

She is showing more than he thought she would. Her white teeshirt is a light cotton for the still-warm fall air and it molds to her body, to the rounded bump of her stomach that her hand is now resting on. How far along is she? Far enough that he's missed so much, when he ran. _(you do this, and I am done. that's it. you're dead to me.)_

Boy or girl? His nose or Karen's eyes? Christ, he hopes whoever is in there is all their mother. Not his looks, not his temper, not his anything. Except Karen didn't do this by herself. For all his fear, his anger, his hurts, this is his as well. His child. _(no, but I want there to be an after. for you.)_

She'd told him in person, voice calm, tone slightly apologetic. She'd told him she was keeping it, that she would do it alone if she had to, but he had a right to know, a right to say something. He'd taken the right to run like hell, away from her, away from this, away from happiness. _(get away from this thing. get away from me. just stay away from me.)_

How can he hold a child again? How can he love a baby again? How can he protect them, when he is angrier and deadlier than ever? When he is a terrible monster with blood on his hands, who sometimes only dreams of death and destruction and draws it to him every waking moment? _(there's no - warm, cozy ending. not for me.)_

He thinks they'd all be better off without him, far, far away. But he is selfish. And he wants to see her. He wants to know. Boy or girl? Sometimes he finds himself thinking about throwing a football. Helping with math homework. Bath-times and bedtimes and lunchtimes. _(you helped me remember.)_

He doesn't doubt Karen will be a great mom. She always has been, taking care of everyone. Fierce, passionate, stubborn, loving Karen. She'll be a great mom to this little one and she'll be able to do it alone. She's got enough fire. _(all you will do, the rest of your life, is rot in a goddamn jail cell!)_

But there's a tiny part of him, a tiny cord inside him, that reels him home, back to her. To this. To a tiny little light, one that can guide him towards a different place. A different way. A different future. _(so where does that end, Frank? because I look at you and... my heart breaks because all I can see is just this endless, echoing loneliness.)_

He raises his head to look at Karen. He still has such fear. And this will never get any easier. He will never get any better. He is scarred, he is brutal. He can rain down death and fury and destruction. There is danger. There is pain. _(you should walk away.)_

But she knows that. She's always known that. Her lips quirk into.... A smile? A challenge? An acknowledgement? And so she approaches him. _(what? you think you can scare me off that easy? you know better than that.)_

Her small, soft hands take one of his large, rough ones. He is shaking, trembling like an earthquake hesitates under his skin, as she lifts and places his broad palm on her stomach, moving it this way and that until he feels it. _(people that can hurt you, the ones that can really hurt you, are the ones that are close enough to do it.)_

A strong, firm kick. Right at him. _(give you strength to carry on, make your body big and strong, born a man child of the sun.)_

Wonder. Amazement. Familiarity. And memories, an avalanche of memories so painful that it's a miracle he stays standing as they wash back over him. He tries to stay above them, to not give in to the siren's song, but there are too many, too strong, for him to not and so he disappears, back into the 'what might have been' and the guilt and the agony of his grief. _(they were better off without me, Karen.)_

When he finally manages to surface, he is lying on her couch. Across from him, reclining her chair with a book and a mug of tea that rests on her stomach, is Karen. His Karen. And now, with a clarity sharpened by regret, he sees her and understands. _(i will come for you.)_

This is not a replacement. This does not wipe out everything that came before. This is an after, a second chance. She's always wanted it for him. She's always been offering it. She's just not stupid enough to give it up like he is, to be too scared of it to let it pass her by. She's so much braver than him. _(you're brave. you're strong, all right. but you are so goddamn stubborn, and you will throw everything away for me, and I cannot let that happen, all right?)_

He rises and crosses the distance, kneeling in front of her. She sets aside the book and the tea, leaning forward to touch his face gently. He pulls her down for a long, slow, steady kiss and then pulls back, placing a hand on her belly. _(you have everything. so, hold on to it. use two hands and never let go.)_

This is a gift. _(her.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you times a million for coming on this journey with me!!!


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